by Rachel Rust
I force my mouth open and ever so silently speak. “I cleanse this space; I dispel negative energy.” I clear my throat and with another gust of smoke, say louder, “I cleanse this space; I dispel negative energy.”
After smoking up the closet top to bottom, back to front, I close the door and re-latch it. I continue, in all directions, from corner to corner, top to bottom. Even under my bed. Because nothing good ever comes from under a bed.
I dab the end of the sage into the bowl, putting out the smoke. I find comfort in the hazy air. A shield. If only I knew exactly what I was shielding myself from.
I head back downstairs and into the kitchen. After a few unsuccessful searches, I find a large container of salt in the cabinet over the stove. I shake my head. This is even dumber than chanting.
But, whatever.
I pour salt all around the perimeter of my bedroom, careful not to leave too thick of a trail or Grandma will see it. The entire room is quiet and sunny—exactly like any bedroom should be on a typical summer day.
And the normalness makes me question my own sanity.
…
That night, I change into pajamas, brush my teeth, and get into bed. No more couch. No more fear.
The weak lamplight outside streams through my window, slightly illuminating the latched closet door. I drift off and then wake up around midnight. My ears search for sound, but there is none. No voices. No giggling.
I drift off again and dream about the house across the street.
It’s hot and sunny outside. I’m barefoot on the street, but the road doesn’t burn me. The house is old and abandoned with no blood to be seen. The neighborhood is peaceful, and the scent of charcoal and hot dogs hang in the air. Fireworks are being set off nearby, though I can’t see them.
Sometime around four o’clock, I’m roused by a soft hum. At first, it’s in my dream. The sound is lyrical, with a certain repeated pattern. But as my eyes flicker open, it’s not a dream.
And it’s not giggling either. Someone is crying.
I sit up in bed. The sound of crying is all around, in the air, coming from seemingly nowhere. But this isn’t regular crying. It’s deep. A sobbing, sad and dramatic.
But why? Why’s tonight crying, not giggling? What’s different about—
The salt and sage. Oh shit.
It really is affecting them. Mateo was right.
My nostrils sniff only clean air, but no doubt traces of sage linger all around, hanging on everything like a smoky blanket. I lie back and put my comforter over my head, trying to ignore the wailing, trying to get back to sleep. But it does no good.
The sobbing throbs in my head, pulsing through me like a heartbeat.
They’re sad. They’re confused. What if the salt is hurting them? Or the sage is burning or choking them? Oh god, why did I do this to them when they’ve been through so much already?
Exhausted but full of guilt, I launch out of bed and down the stairs. From under the kitchen sink, I grab a dustpan. I run upstairs and sweep up all the salt around my room.
I leave my bedroom door open to air out the room. Back in bed, I huddle under my covers and the throbbing of my head stops. As does the crying. But things don’t go silent. In place of the crying comes the chattering. Two little voices jabber and giggle. Unseen feet shuffle here and there on the wood floors.
I lie still in bed. The closet door remains closed and the voices carry on with each other. Nothing here seems intent on harming me. I force my eyes closed and breathe steady breaths until I drift back to sleep.
Chapter Eleven
Mateo gives me a confused look. “What do you mean I made them cry?”
It’s the next morning, and we’re sitting on the front steps of my porch again. “They cried,” I say, “because of the salt or sage, or both.”
Mateo’s mouth twists, his head obviously full of thoughts, but he doesn’t share them. He’s in another pair of black jeans—or maybe the same pair as always—despite the summer heat. His T-shirt is gray today, with some robot I don’t recognize on the front.
“You don’t believe me?” I ask.
He stares at me, eyes intense. They’re dark and small. “I believe you, I just don’t know what to tell you. Screw ’em if they cry.”
My brow wrinkles. “That’s not very nice. They’ve been through enough, especially if they’re”—I nod toward the house across the street—“the victims of, ya know…”
His head shakes. “Something’s toying with you, and I wouldn’t be too quick to trust anything that doesn’t come in a body.”
“Fair enough. But still, it was sad. I felt guilty.”
“That’s exactly how it wanted you to feel,” he says, picking at a thread in the seam of his jeans. “Like I said, something is toying with you, and if it talked you into getting rid of the salt and sage, it’ll talk you into other things eventually, too.”
“No, it won’t.” I don’t look at the house across the street as distrust of my own words sets in. I did their bidding last night—they cried and I took away my only defenses. Mateo’s right—what’s to say I won’t do it again? I’m a gullible fool and clearly need help. “You should come over tonight and listen to the voices yourself.”
Mateo’s hand stops, mid-pick. “Come over? You mean, like, sit in your bedroom?” The word bedroom comes out with a slight squeak, and he quickly clears his throat. “I mean, sure. I can do that. It’ll be good to hear the sounds with my own ears, that way I can gain a more objective opinion.”
“It’ll have to be late, though, after my grandparents are asleep. I’ll have to sneak you in.”
He stands, pulling his jeans up on his skinny frame. “David will want to hear them, too.”
“David?” I blurt out. This time it’s my voice squeaking. David in my bedroom? Late at night when it’s dark? My stomach flips. I force my shoulders to relax in a lame attempt at being casual. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”
“Let’s go ask him,” Mateo says, already headed down the sidewalk.
I rush up next to him, forcing myself to stay quiet. Forcing calm when all I want to do is jump up and down and squeal. In a split second, my lingering fear of the unknown is replaced by hormonal squeals of joy in my head because I’m going to a cute boy’s house.
My god, can I be any more ridiculous?
David lives only a block from Dotty’s and the Higgins Hardware store. It’s a single-story brown house. The garage door is open, and David’s dad is inside, waxing what looks like a brand-new, white pickup.
“Hey, Mr. Higgins,” Mateo says.
David’s dad nods toward the house. “Hey, Mateo. David’s inside.” He glances my way but doesn’t say anything.
I follow Mateo to the door and past a pair of muddy fishing waders hanging on a hook on the garage wall. The inside of David’s house smells like cinnamon. Not like Grandma’s kitchen after she makes cinnamon cookies, but a manufactured cinnamon—a candle or air freshener. The house is clean, but barebones with only a tan sofa, a tan recliner, and a TV in the living room. One picture hangs on the wall: David and his dad, kneeling by a huge buck with a sprawling rack. David looks to be twelve or thirteen in the photo. His face looks the same as now, but younger and chubbier. It makes me smile, except I wonder where his mom is. Why are there no pictures of her?
Mateo leads me into the hallway and knocks on the first door. He enters without waiting for an invite, and I hang back at the doorway.
“What’s up?” David says to Mateo.
Mateo steps to the side, revealing my presence as he says, “We need to talk to you.”
David, reclined on the bed, notices me for the first time. He sits up and runs a hand over his hair, which is already perfectly in place. “Hey,” he says with a slight grin.
I give him a little wave and regret it immediately. I’m such a dork.
He blushes, then clenches his jaw and clears his throat. His tone of voice is suddenly lower. “What do you guys need?”
I
glance at Mateo, hoping he’ll be the one to dish out the late-night invite. My nerves are creating stickiness in my palms and affecting my ability to speak.
Mateo gives me a slight nod and turns to David. “You wanna spend the night with Chessie?”
My eyes go wide and before I can stop it, my hand smacks Mateo on the arm.
“Ow! What?” he grumbles. “That’s what we need to ask him, right?”
I shake my head, unsure what to say or where to look. But I have to say something. David’s waiting for an explanation, and the last thing I need is Mateo making the situation even more awkward. I take a deep breath and force words. “Mateo thinks the two of you should come over tonight to listen to the voices yourself.”
“That’s what I said,” Mateo says with a glare.
“Not exactly.”
David stands up. “Count me in.”
“Great,” I say with a small grin, trying hard not to go full-on giggly schoolgirl.
He flashes a smile my way, and, once again, there’s a flicker of familiarity. I wonder if he’s made an appearance in one of my dreams, but that’s a ridiculous notion. The only people who show up in my dreams at night are dead and chopped up.
I follow David and Mateo out of the house and into the garage.
“Dad, I’m going to take off with Mateo and Chessie.”
My cheeks flush at the sound of David saying my name.
David’s dad looks at me again. He resembles David but with graying hair and a healthy dose of lines around his eyes. “You’re a Carpenter, right? Will Carpenter’s daughter?”
I nod, knowing what he’ll say next.
“I went to school with your dad. We played basketball together.” He wipes his hands on a dirty rag. “Hell of a center, your dad was.”
“So I’ve heard.” Everyone in town loves to talk about my dad’s basketball skills. And before him, Grandpa was the town’s shining baseball star.
“You play ball yourself?” he asks.
I nearly laugh. Two things I didn’t inherit from my dad—height and athleticism. “No, I’m not good with a basketball.” Or any other sporting equipment. I’m just the band geek who blows into a reed while cooler people get the cheers.
“Too bad,” he says, flinging the rag over his shoulder. He looks at his son. “David’s damn good with a basketball, but he’s never wanted to play for school. Coulda gotten himself some college scholarships, if he had only tried.”
David glares at his dad. “We’re leaving.”
Mateo and I follow as David leads the way down his driveway, onto the sidewalk. His dad’s gone back to waxing his truck. My head’s full of questions about David and college and his relationship with his dad, but I stay quiet.
We walk back to Mateo’s Suburban parked near my house. Mateo drives us out to his house, saying that he needs to organize “the necessary gear” for our ghost hunt, which turns out to be a couple of small voice recorders, a device the size of a remote control that’s supposed to measure energy, and a chunky, hand-held device with a screen that he says captures images of specters.
Mateo tosses a small recorder my way. “Most of what we’ll do tonight is try and get EVPs.”
“What does that mean?”
“Electronic Voice Phenomenon. It’s basically recording voices and other sounds we can’t hear with our own ears but that the recorder can pick up. We’ll ask the spirits questions, waiting about thirty seconds between each question. Even if we don’t hear anything in real time, we’ll hopefully get something recorded that we can listen to afterwards.”
I hand back the recorder. “Trust me, you’ll hear the voices with your own ears. They don’t appear to be shy.”
Mateo grins. “Even better.”
He places nearly a dozen gadgets and cords neatly into a hard-sided briefcase on his bed.
“Are you sure that’s enough?” David asks with a slightly amused tone. He’s seated on the floor, relaxed back against the wall, zippo in hand. He may technically be a part of this whole ghost-hunting group, but he definitely only plays a supportive role. Mateo is the real deal.
Mateo ignores David and snaps his briefcase shut. He’s ready to go. And something in his demeanor has changed. The usual awkwardness has been replaced by a stern look and serious manner. This guy is ready to find some ghosts.
“What time do your grandparents go to bed?” he asks.
David clicks the zippo shut and looks at me, waiting for an answer. My heart races. He’s waiting for me to tell him when he can come into my bedroom. Tonight. In the dark.
Just breathe.
“Um…” My fingers twist together as I look everywhere but David’s direction. “Usually by ten-thirty or eleven.”
Mateo nods. “We’ll come by at midnight then.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Except it isn’t much of a plan. It’s only a meeting time. How am I supposed to get two guys into my room at midnight? I can count on one hand the number of squeaks in the hardwood on the main floor alone. Then there are the stairs. And the hallway—mere feet from my sleeping grandparents. And what if they’re not asleep? I shake my head to rid it of paranoid thoughts—issues I will eventually need to work out, but I have all day for that. “So, what are we going to do until then?” The alarm clock by Mateo’s bed reads just after noon.
Mateo frowns. “I gotta work all afternoon. My uncle’s down at River’s Bend, fishing with some old buddy of his.”
“At least you can work by yourself,” David says. “You don’t have to listen to him rag on you all day.”
“True,” Mateo says. He stretches skinny arms high and mumbles, barely audible, “stupid bastard.”
I don’t react to his quiet frustration. From my one run-in with Mateo’s Uncle Ricky, I’d prefer not to work all day with that stupid bastard, too.
My gaze falls to David who’s already looking at me. He smiles. But it’s not a regular smile. There’s something behind it. Something not good—not good for me anyway, because he’s clearly enjoying whatever awful thought he’s having.
“You busy this afternoon?” he asks.
“No way.” I shake my head and he laughs.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
I grimace. “I have a feeling.”
We’re too old for the swimming pool. That leaves only one other option.
Chapter Twelve
South of Villisca, the Nodaway River splits into two and then runs north, up both sides of town. I have no idea which side David has driven me to, but I’m now standing on a muddy bank, watching him squish a worm on a hook.
He laughs at me. “Never fished with worms before?”
“Of course I have. When I was little, my grandpa took me fishing every time we visited.”
“Then why are you so grossed out?”
“I never got used to the savage nature of torturing and sacrificing little worms. Nets. People should use nets. Plus? Worms are icky. Lively, wriggling little strings of wet flesh. No thanks.”
David hands me a fishing rod, then watches with a grin that says good luck, City Girl. But the joke is on him. I know how to cast a line. I draw the rod back, then fling it forward and release the line. But the little worm plops into the water only ten feet from shore. My pride slumps into embarrassment.
“Good enough for now,” he says, not hiding his amusement. His line is perfectly cast, well beyond mine. “If you don’t like fishing, then what do you like to do? Do you play any sports?”
“No. I tried soccer once. That was an epic disaster. The only goal I ever managed to make was in the other team’s net. After that, I realized I’m not cut out for athletics.”
“Are you more the marching band type?” he asks with a teasing tone.
I cut him a sharp look. “Shut up.”
His eyes widen and he laughs. “Oh my god, you are. I’m—” He tries to stop his laughter, but it doesn’t work and he laughs louder. “Sorry, I didn’t realize. What instrument do you play?�
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“The clarinet, although I haven’t played it at all since I got here.” This realization brings a smile to my face. “My parents would be so pissed if they knew that.”
David stops his laughter before asking, “Did you get in trouble or something?”
My eyebrows furrow. I’ve never been in trouble for anything in my life. Not real trouble anyway. Once, when I was five, I was caught trying to sneak a candy bar out of Target. A woman who worked there had scolded me, and I burst into tears. That was when I had realized the criminal life was not for me.
“I’m not in trouble,” I say. “Why do you ask?”
“You sure?” David asks with a crooked grin and a glimmer of sun in his eyes. “Thought maybe you knocked over a convenience store, so your parents sent you away to stay out of trouble in the big city.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Not even close.”
“So then why did they send you away?”
“They…they didn’t send me away.” The words stammer out, contradicting my message.
He drops his smile and stares at me. “You can tell me what’s going on. I’m not gonna make fun of you.”
“It’s nothing; don’t worry about it,” I say, plopping down onto a semi-buried rock barely big enough to keep my butt off the muddy sand. My parents are four hundred miles away, and I’d like to keep it that way. “I didn’t get in trouble. I’m just here to visit my grandparents.”
David looks back out at the waters. “Whatever you say.”
In the sand right in front of me, I draw a figure eight with my finger. “What else do you guys do around here for fun? Besides your two-man ghost-busting club.”
David exhales hard, as if that alone sums up his thoughts on small-town life. “There’s baseball in the spring and summer, but that’s never been my scene. There’s deer and pheasant hunting in the fall, but I’m not much of a hunter. I’d rather fish. But mostly, I just work.”
“How long have you worked at the store?”
“Since before I could see over the counter. My family’s owned it for generations.” He doesn’t say anymore, but I sense it—the small-town desperation for escape. Wanting more but being tied to family roots planted in the middle of nowhere.