We were outside my grandmother’s house now. I directed the boys to the front door. We struggled to climb the front stairs with West’s weight.
I put West down, letting him lean on his brother as I pushed the door open. I motioned for Ridge to bring him into the living room. I looked around for my grandmother while West got comfortable on the couch.
“Grandma!” I yelled. “We need some help!”
I heard footsteps upstairs before my grandmother came rushing into the living room. She looked around with a panicked expression.
“What’s going on?” Her head swiveled between me, Ridge, and West. Then she did a double take and looked at West again. “Oh, West! Dear, are you all right?” She ran to his side at the couch and inspected him and his injuries.
“I’m okay, Mrs. Gentry.” He smiled at her weakly.
“Did that ghost hurt you?” she asked him in a whisper.
He nodded, and tears glistened his eyes.
“Marigold, go to the library and grab the wooden box from the cabinet, the one with the star on it.”
I ran to the library and went directly to the cabinet she’d mentioned. There was a wooden box that Grandma kept hidden in the back. I pulled it out and looked at the symbol on the top: a star with a circle around it.
I brought the box hurriedly into the living room and set it on the coffee table. Ridge put a pillow behind West’s head and another under his swollen ankle.
I watched Ridge dote on his brother and smiled slightly at the care that he was taking with him. Ridge was speaking to him in a low voice as he looked him over for any cuts or bruises. Ridge was being every bit the big brother that I remembered from my childhood. West was trying to pull away from him, but when he saw that it was useless, he let him continue.
Grandma pulled the top of the box off and dug through the contents. It was full of miscellaneous charms: bracelets, necklaces, rings, and even little cloth bags filled with what I assumed were herbs or small animal bones. She pulled out a necklace and showed it to the boys and me. It was a silver charm on a long, thin piece of leather.
“What is that?” Ridge asked.
She handed it to him, and West glanced at the charm as well. “It’s a pentacle. This is one of the most powerful Wiccan symbols of protection. It should protect you from negative energy and against attacks by spirits. Put it on—we don’t want Elizabeth to be able to possess you again.”
West fastened the leather around his neck and then tucked the charm under his shirt. Grandma dug through the box again looking for more charms for herself, Ridge, and me. She handed me a necklace and Ridge a signet ring.
Ridge slid it onto his middle finger. There was a small bit of space between his finger and the ring but it fit well enough.
“That was my Cecil’s,” she said to him, a small smile on the corner of her mouth.
Ridge smiled, too. “I’ll take good care of it.”
“So, this should protect me?” West asked. There was fear in his eyes.
My grandmother put a hand softly on his arm and smiled. “It should.”
“I have a question,” Ridge said, turning to West. “How was the ghost able to control you?”
West cast his eyes down and fiddled with his fingers. He grumbled to himself, like he was trying to say something but didn’t want us to hear him.
“What is it?” Ridge asked softly, leaning in closer to his brother.
“I think that might be my fault . . .” he said into his chest.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, I may or may not have brought her here . . . I used a Ouija board . . .” He didn’t make eye contact with either of us.
“When?” Grandma asked him. West fiddled with his hands in his lap and then said, “About a week ago.”
I groaned and put my head in my hands. “West! Why would you do that?” My voice was muffled in my hands.
“I know, I’m sorry! I was just curious. I read about Elizabeth in a book at the library and I wanted to know if the board actually worked. I always thought it was bullshit.” He caught himself swearing and quickly apologized to my grandmother. “Turns out, it does work.”
“Of course it does! They open doors to the spirit world and let them come to our world,” Grandma said to him forcefully.
He kept his eyes down, not wanting to be scolded.
“But that’s ridiculous. It’s just a piece of wood,” Ridge said, protecting his brother.
I opened my mouth to speak, but West beat me to it. “No, Ridge, she’s right. They do work. And the mistake I made was not closing the door.”
I shook my head again and pulled my knees up to my chest, starting to rock back and forth.
“What do you mean?” Ridge asked.
“When you use a Ouija board, you open a door to the spirit world, and the mistake that a lot of people make is not closing the door and saying ‘goodbye’ to the ghost. So, she stayed, and it seems like she attached herself to you as well.” Grandma shook her head in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” West said. He looked to Ridge as tears formed in his eyes.
I sighed, got up, and sat next to him on the couch. I curled an arm around his shoulders.
“It’s okay, we just need to figure out how to fix this,” my grandmother said, trying to make him feel better.
West nodded and then turned to look down at Ridge as he examined his ankle. Ridge had rolled up the tattered, dirty cuff of his jeans and we all looked at the black, purple, and yellow swollen skin. We all winced, West the most.
“Ouch,” Ridge said under his breath.
“Yeah, I think when I fell out the window I must have landed on my foot or something.”
Ridge prodded it lightly with his fingertips, making West hiss in pain. He made sure his brother was situated and then sat back into the couch with a sigh. “If West using the Ouija board brought Elizabeth to our world now, how was she here years ago like your grandad’s journals said?” Ridge asked.
“And if West opened the door a week ago, why was everything fine when you got here a couple days ago?” I asked in return. I glanced around the living room at the drawn faces of my companions, pale in the light of the white candles of protection.
“I don’t have an answer to either of those questions,” West mumbled into his chest.
“What was it like?” I asked West.
He twitched under my arm, knowing what I meant by my question. I hadn’t meant to ask him, but it just came out. Ridge stopped inspecting his brother and looked at me and then West, wanting to know as well.
“I knew what she was feeling and thinking, but I couldn’t see what she was doing and couldn’t control my body. There were times that I was conscious of things.” He turned to Ridge. “I’m sorry about pushing you down the stairs in the lighthouse.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Ridge said with a smile. His chin still had dried blood on it from when he’d fallen.
“What happened up there?” Grandma asked.
I told her the whole story, including the bit about the necklace not solving our troubles. Halfway through my story, Ridge stood suddenly. He jerked West’s ankle, causing him to hiss in pain.
“Your grandfather wrote that Elizabeth wanted to be buried with what meant most to her, and that was her family.” His hands flew to the side of his head like he was trying to keep the contents of his brain from flowing out. “Bury me . . .” he whispered to himself. “Bury me with what means most . . .” he repeated, louder this time.
“Are you suggesting we desecrate a grave?”
“I guess I am,” he responded with a shrug.
“Let’s get going then,” West said. He pushed my arm away and tried to stand. He put pressure on his good foot and tried to take a step forward. He swayed and fell back onto the couch.
“Whoa, whoa,” Ridge said. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“What do you want me to do? Just wait here? She was possessing me, Ridge. I need to see this throu
gh.”
“We should let him come,” I said to Ridge. West smiled at me gratefully.
Ridge sighed and put his hands on his hips. “Fine, let’s go.”
West and Ridge walked ahead of me through the wrought-iron gate, their arms around each other as West limped along. As the boys walked through the graveyard, I took my time behind them. I didn’t want to get too far away, but I wanted to give them some sibling time.
When we were younger, we’d spent a lot of time here. We’d play hide and seek behind tombstones, and would even have picnics underneath the large maple trees that stood in the grove. When you’re young, graveyards didn’t seem so scary, or at least they didn’t to me. Death was so far away that I wasn’t afraid. But now, in the dark night with a real ghost possessing the town, I knew that death was just a bit closer than it’d been before.
I ran up next to the boys and squeezed Ridge’s arm lightly.
He glanced down at me and sighed. “Would you think less of me if I said I was scared?” he asked.
I laughed a little bit and shook my head. “Well,” I began, “I could quite literally shit my pants right now, so no, I wouldn’t think less of you.”
Ridge let out a laugh that seemed too loud for the graveyard.
I winced and looked around, hoping that no spirits had heard him. “Do you believe in ghosts yet?” I asked with a smirk. I looked up at him, searching his face for an answer.
“At this point, I can’t not believe. Who would’ve known that ghosts were real?”
“A lot of people. This is something people have been studying for years. It’s been said that ghosts exist, people just need to learn to see.” I glanced at the tombstones and the sun-bleached angels that watched over them and the paths winding between the graves. The stones were lined with dead flowers and dried wreaths left by loved ones.
I followed Ridge and West, quietly tiptoeing through the graveyard. I glanced at tombstones as we went, reading the names of the long-dead people of Beaconfield. I looked around for the name Elizabeth Harp. If she’d died in Beaconfield, she was here. But her soul was on the loose.
We made it to the back corner of the plots and hadn’t seen anyone, but we also hadn’t found Elizabeth’s grave. The three of us were silent, the only sound was the tick of dead leaves moving in the breeze.
I stopped and silently looked around, squinting my eyes in the dark as I watched for any movement. When I turned back to the boys, the bushes behind them were moving. I let out a yelp and pulled Ridge in front of me for protection.
“What?” he whispered.
I pointed ahead of us at the bush. It was still shaking back and forth, and chittering noises were coming from it. Ridge tensed in front of me. The shaking stopped and then the creature jumped out from behind the leaves. I screamed slightly, closing my eyes and hiding my face in Ridge’s back.
After a few seconds, nothing happened. I heard Ridge chuckle. Confused, I opened my eyes. Sitting on the grass in front of us was a raccoon.
I let out a sigh and then chuckled to myself as well. “Not exactly what I was expecting,” I said. The raccoon shuffled away into the trees. Ridge and I let out a collective breath and paused.
“Could I rest for a minute?” West asked his brother. Ridge nodded and helped him take a seat. West adjusted himself on the grass, wincing as he did so. I dropped my shovel and the crowbar in the grass beside him.
I kept glancing over at him. He was holding his pentacle necklace. I reminded myself that as long as he wore it, the ghost couldn’t possess him.
“Now what?” Ridge asked.
Crack.
We all spun to see a man standing behind us. The man had long stringy hair soaked in sweat and what looked like dirt. He wore a tattered trench coat over long johns. The old man stumbled toward us, his eyes white.
“Either of you guys know who that is?” I asked quietly, barely above a whisper.
“It’s the grave keeper,” West said, his voice shaking.
“Great.”
The man approached us slowly. He was twitching and jerking, like the ghost was getting used to being inside his body. Suddenly, a large rock flew directly at his head. I heard a whack as it slammed into his forehead.
The man turned away and hissed. When he looked back to us, blood was dripping down into his eye from a large gash.
West looked at the man and then sighed. “I was trying to help,” he said with a groan.
“I think you just pissed it off,” Ridge said while keeping an eye on the grave keeper.
Just then, the man lunged. Ridge pushed me away and made me run. I limped along as fast as I could, having a flashback from only hours earlier. I stopped and hid behind a headstone. I heard a scream and then Ridge yelled, “Let him go!”
I peeked out from behind the stone to see the grave keeper mauling West on the ground. His hands were moving back and forth rapidly, scratching at his face and chest. West was screaming.
Ridge had told me to run, but I knew that I needed to go back and help them. We needed to find Elizabeth’s grave, but who knew if that would even solve our problems.
I snuck around the yard, using the headstones as protection. As I got closer, I heard the wails of both West and the ghost getting louder. Ridge was attempting to get the ghost off his brother, but nothing was working. West kept his arms up to protect his face.
I made my way back to the grave and grabbed the shovel. Before the ghost noticed me, I smacked it across the head. The grave keeper slumped to the side and lay still.
West curled up into the fetal position and wept. Ridge grabbed his brother and held him. The wind picked up again as we inspected West. I checked his face, neck, and chest—he was riddled with scratches.
“You’re okay,” Ridge said over and over again to his hysterical brother.
“Uh, Ridge,” I said slowly. He looked up at me, and I showed him the piece of broken leather between my fingers. The ghost had ripped the pentacle from West’s neck.
“Where’s the charm?” Ridge said loudly. He let go of his brother and patted the ground for it, digging though the dirt. It was gone.
Suddenly, West stopped whimpering and lay stiff on the ground. He began to twitch and seize.
I stepped back from him. I knew that the ghost was trying to take him over. Ridge grabbed West and pulled, trying to drag him along with us.
“Ridge, come on, she’s going to get him. Get out of there!” I yelled to him. He either didn’t hear me or didn’t want to, because he was still dragging his brother.
All of a sudden, the graveyard was completely silent like we were in a vacuum. Ridge fell back onto his hands and stared down at West. He didn’t move. I held my breath, waiting for something to move. And then West did.
His legs twitched and then his arms and his head. He sat up slowly from the ground, like a mummy from his tomb. His head turned sideways and he glared directly into his brother’s eyes.
Before I knew what was happening, the ghost’s hand shot out and grabbed Ridge’s throat.
“No!” I screamed as I ran toward the ghost, picking up the crowbar as I went. I approached him from behind. I drew it back and aimed a whack at the ghost when Ridge flailed at me. I stopped.
I’d almost hit West upside the head with a crowbar.
I dropped it and punched him in the cheek. West let out a gasp of pain and let go of his brother. I grabbed Ridge and pushed him away. I limped away from the ghost, pulling Ridge along with me.
My boots squelched in the mud and my breathing was heavy. Once I’d passed a couple headstones, I stole a glance behind me. Ridge was there, almost at my heels, but West was just behind him.
“Go, go, go!” Ridge yelled, waving me ahead. I didn’t know where I was going, but I figured the graveyard exit would be best. I adjusted my course and ran as hard as I ever had. My ankle was screaming in protest, but the adrenaline seemed to be blocking the pain from my mind.
I felt confident we could escape until I felt my
foot sink deep into the mud. I yelped as I fell forward and my boot stayed stationary. My ankle twisted and I fell face-first into the ground. The mud forced its way up my nose and I felt the rattling of my whole body as each part of it hit the cold, wet ground.
I tried to get to my feet but I only had one shoe and was blinded by the mud in my eyes. Just then I was tackled from behind. I tried to scrape the mud from my eyes and fend off my attacker at the same time, but my opponent got the better of me. West held my arms down to the ground. I struggled against the skinny boy—he seemed stronger than he should’ve been.
The pressure of West’s body left me in an instant. I coughed a few times, clearing my lungs before I got to my knees. I looked ahead of me and saw Ridge fighting off his brother. West lunged at him and Ridge grabbed him and threw him to the side, grunting in effort. As soon as West’s body began flying through the air, I knew that something bad was going to happen. I wasn’t surprised when his head smashed into a tombstone and then fell still.
I winced and got up to join Ridge. He rushed to his brother’s side and tried to rouse him.
My whole body pulsed with pain as I stood. I limped to the mud pile and pulled my boot back on. Ridge was shaking his brother’s shoulder lightly. Blood already forming on West’s forehead.
“He’s bleeding,” Ridge said in a scared tone as his hands shook. “Oh my god, what did I do?”
I leaned down and took a look at the wound. “It’s not deep,” I said after I dabbed away some of the blood. “He’ll be fine. Head wounds just bleed a lot. And he’ll probably have a concussion, but he’s fine other than that.”
We stared down at West. His breathing was shallow and his body was battered, but he looked peaceful, as if he was sleeping. Then he moved and winced.
“West?” Ridge asked, looking hopeful.
“Ridge?” West asked. I smiled when I recognized his voice—it was him this time. I reached down to help Ridge sit him up against a headstone. West opened his eyes and rubbed his forehead. When Ridge saw that West’s eyes weren’t white, he tackled his brother, hugging him. West hissed in pain and tried to push his big brother away.
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