In Memoriam Read online

  I turn my head and discover Ruth using the toilet like a chair. Staring at me, which startles me, causing my whole body to jerk. I didn’t realize she was there, so she startled me. I suppose it’s a little creepy that she’s watching me, but if she left me unattended I could have drowned so it’s all good, really.

  “Sorry, my dear, I didn’t mean to shock you,” she says.

  “Why’s the water so hot?” I ask her. “It burns.”

  “Well, it’s certainly not to cause you pain! It’s to kill germs, obviously,” she says. “Now let’s get you out of there and put some magick ointment on you.”

  Ruth gets up and gives me her arm to help me balance as I stand up and get out of the tub. What a relief. Then she hands me a bathrobe and I put it on to dry off. I grab a towel from the rack and use it to dry my hair. I do that as quickly as possible then I sit down on the toilet with the robe half off my top so she can put her magick ointment on my arm, which stings something fierce right now.

  Ruth holds a small bowl she has mixed the creamy, light green ointment in. She scoops some up with two fingers and gently rubs it on my arm, thick enough that it covers the bullet wound.

  “Don’t we have to get the bullet out?”

  “I did that while you were enjoying your deep sleep.”

  “How’d you do it?”

  “Good, old-fashioned tweezers, which I may have spelled.”

  I laugh. “Why didn’t you spell the hole it made to heal, too?”

  She grins. “Because my ointment should do it. And that, I did spell.”

  “If it was just black magick messing with me out there how come I still have this wound?” I need to understand all of this.

  Ruth raises an eyebrow. “Because you believe it to be real.”

  “So, if I tell myself it’s not real, it will go away?”

  “Well, you have to believe it. Strongly. Then it will go away.”

  I guess that makes sense. So, I might as well try it. I shut my eyes, take a deep breath and believe it will work as I confidently say, “Then I will this wound on my arm to vanish. It isn’t real and I know it’s not really there.”

  I take another deep breath and open my eyes and it’s gone without a trace. Like it was never there. The pain is gone, too. Amazing! Now I look at my abdomen where I had a scar after I’d healed myself and it’s gone. Guess it’s true what they say about mind over matter.

  I fix the bathrobe then I get up and wrap my arms around Ruth. “Thank you.” I hug her tightly. And she hugs me back that way, too.

  “You’re welcome, dear, as always. But you did it yourself.”

  We stop hugging. “But I wouldn’t have believed it was going to work if you hadn’t told me it would. Wait, does that mean this house isn’t real, that it’s my mind making all of this up?”

  “No, this place is real. You couldn’t make it vanish no matter how hard you tried.”

  “What about what happened outside? Could I have made it go away by believing it wasn’t real?”

  “I’m afraid not. That only worked because you were here. Out there is real while it’s happening.”

  “Figures,” I say. “Wait – what happens when I wake up from a nightmare like that? If I die in one of them, will I die in real life?”

  “No, you’d just wake up. But I wouldn’t go committing suicide because then you’d be letting the black magick win and that will affect you in the real world.”

  “Oh.” I feel like crying now. “This is all so depressing. And confusing.”

  Mister Black appears at my side, rubbing himself against the bathrobe. I finally release Ruth so I can pick him up and pet him.

  “Is he really here?” I ask her.

  “Yes, but he’s also safe in your room right now.”

  “How can that be?”

  “That’s a question for the Gods, my dear. Now let’s go have tea.”

  “But I’m already healed,” I say.

  “Well, it will make your head hurt less when you wake up from this.”

  “Ah, I see.” I put Mister Black down and we follow Ruth into the kitchen where she’s set a teapot and cups on the table. She’s also placed out a bowl of tuna fish on the floor, which Mister Black comes running to and immediately begins eating.

  “So, did you summon me here or did I want to come?” I ask as Ruth fills my cup with purplish tea that smells of lavender.

  “Both,” she says. “You were having a nightmare and felt threatened. And you wanted my help, so here I am.”

  “But would we still be meeting right now if I hadn’t had the frightmare?”

  She gives me a smile. “Yes. I do have a couple things to tell you.”

  I nod. “OK.”

  “Well, I have to warn you; you girls must be very cautious about what you do with your magick now because you’re so powerful you could curse someone just by thinking it.”

  “Literally?” I swallow hard.

  She nods. “Literally, I’m afraid.”

  I blow air out of my nose and square my shoulders as my anxiety rises. “But sometimes you can’t help but think things. They just pop into your head. How are we supposed to prevent ourselves from cursing people then? If I’m worried about cursing someone that will make me curse them because whenever I tell myself not to think about something it makes me think of it.”

  “Well, I do have a suggestion which should help. In the back section of the Book of Shadows – where you found the angel spell – there are instructions for making talismans and spells to give them power. One of them is a barrier against evil spell.”

  I bite my lip nervously. “So, we make talismans?”

  She nods. “You can even use your pentacle necklaces. Contrary to popular belief, a talisman doesn’t need to be engraved with all kinds of fancy lettering or symbols. Any metal object can be spelled to be one.”

  Sounds promising enough. “So, how does the barrier against evil work?”

  “It’s a type of protection spell. It gives whoever is wearing the talisman a sort of shield that covers their aura and doesn’t allow black magick to pass through. In your case, it will keep your black magick inside you so you don’t accidentally hurt someone.”

  “Will it protect us if other people try to use black magick on us?”

  “Yes, it works that way, too.”

  “Sounds great. Why didn’t you just tell me that instead of getting me worried about cursing people with my thoughts?”

  “You needed to know what you’re capable of, dearie. In case you should be without your talisman someday.”

  “So, did Angel Raphael really come help me or was that evil messing with my head?”

  “That was your good magick shining through the darkness.”

  “But was it really an angel?”

  “In the literal sense, no. But it was when you were dreaming.”

  I scratch the back of my still wet hair. “Ah. What’s the deal with angels, anyway? Are they real?” I suppose they must be or those spells wouldn’t be in the Book of Shadows.

  “Yes. On one side of the coin you have demons and on the other you have angels.”

  “What do angels have to do with witchcraft?” I bite my bottom lip.

  “Well, as you know, there are Gods and Goddesses who serve under the Lord and Lady. The angels simply serve under the Gods and Goddesses.”

  “And they’ll help witches?”

  “Sure, sometimes. As with the Gods and Goddesses, you have to be sure to call on the right one for what you need help with. Just like the saints. It should tell you which angel helps with what in the back of the Book of Shadows.”

  Right. That’s how I knew to call on Raphael. “So, where do the saints fit in then?” I’ve been dying to ask her this for ages and I always forget or we run out of time.

  “Saints serve under the angels. And they can live on earth if they choose to.”

  “Are they immortal if they do?”

  She nods and smiles.

  �
�Cool. And the Lord and Lady are at the top above the Gods and Goddesses, right?”

  “Indeed. And it doesn’t go any higher. Now drink your tea.”

  I sip the steaming tea, which tastes like lavender, as I expected. Lavender mixed with something. Nutmeg, I think. To be honest, it isn’t my cup of tea, except that it is my cup of tea, so I continue sipping it. The more it flows over my taste buds, it also tastes like dandelion flowers – and a touch of honey – and it actually starts to grow on me.

  “Would you like more honey?” she asks as she motions to the jar of honey on the table, which must have just appeared there because I didn’t notice it before.

  “Oh. Right,” I say, feeling stupid. I use my spoon and put three spoonfuls of honey in my cup. And stir it.

  The scent of the honey wafts through the air now. I take a sip and it’s so yummy I lick my lips as I put the cup back down on the table.

  Ruth sips her tea as well. The first sip makes her cringe and she makes a funny face, which makes me laugh so hard I spit out the tea I was about to swallow.

  Fortunately, she isn’t offended. On the contrary, she starts laughing heartily, which makes me chuckle.

  “How am I going to keep on laughing with black magick inside me?” I ask once our giggling ceases.

  “The best way to do that is to forget that it’s there.”

  I straighten my shoulders. “How the hell am I supposed to do that? I told you I’m prone to thinking about things I shouldn’t.”

  “Spend time with your friends, doing fun things. Act like a sixteen-year-old. Embrace your new school and get involved in some activities.”

  “That I can do,” I say with a sigh. “But if I keep having those nightmares it’ll be impossible to forget.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have them very often. Your white magick is much stronger than your black. Now, there’s something else I need to tell you. It’s about Krystal and Priscilla, the two you rescued.”

  That would be Priscilla Hatfield, J’s sister, who J had held prisoner for 15 years, and Krystal Nolford, the 12 year old virgin and natural born witch J was planning to kill on Samhain, otherwise known as Halloween. “What about them?”

  “You and your friends need to look out for them.”

  I hope she doesn’t mean we’re responsible for them like when you save people’s lives in other countries. “How so?”

  “They’re going to need friends. As you know, Krystal’s were slain by J and Priscilla was locked up for so long she doesn’t have anyone. J killed their parents before she abducted her and went into hiding.”

  “Yikes... So, are they both still in the hospital?”

  She rubs her chin. “Yes, they sure are.”

  “Krystal still has her parents, though, right?”

  “Yes. Thank the Lord and Lady she has them. But she’s been severely traumatized and the only people who can relate to what she went through right now are you and your friends. So, please, visit them regularly and take them out for coffee or a meal once in a while when they’re out of the hospital. You just might enjoy their company.”

  I swallow hard. “But we could get in serious trouble if we’re linked to them.”

  “You already linked yourselves to them when you told them to say their abductors were Robert, Marco and J.”

  That is true. “I guess we could visit them if you don’t think it’ll get us connected to the mountain exploding.”

  She half-smiles and shakes her head. “I can only see so far into the future, but I don’t see that happening.”

  “What do you see happening?”

  “Now, now. You know I can only say so much.”

  We drink our tea in silence for a minute and I’m finally feeling blissful peace when I feel someone nudge my shoulder, startling me. “I think someone is trying to wake me up.”

  She grins. “That would be your mother.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  EMMA

  I wake up in my bedroom with my mother nudging my shoulder. Not so gently either.

  “What? You can’t let me sleep?” I ask.

  “I did,” she says.

  “What time is it?”

  “Two o’clock.”

  “Seriously? It’s two?” I figured I must have fallen back asleep, but I didn’t think I was out for that long.

  “Indeed.”

  I look at my Felix the Housecat clock and, sure enough, she’s right. “Wow. I knew it didn’t make sense for me to be awake so early after everything that happened yesterday.”

  “We need to have a talk about that. When you’re ready. You can go back to sleep now if you want, but Lia and Shar have both called the landline looking for you because you weren’t responding to their calls or texts.”

  “No, I’m getting up,” I say and I stand up, lest I accidentally fall back asleep.

  It was good to see Great Grandmother Ruth, of course, and to learn that J’s possession didn’t drive her mad or leave her in any kind of agony.

  I hope Lia and Shar didn’t have similar nightmares last night. I wonder if our anti-black magick talismans will protect us from them? Guess I should’ve asked Great Grandmother Ruth.

  I pick up the Book of Shadows, which immediately starts glowing bright, white light in my hands. It must be happy that we retrieved it. I know I’m thrilled because being without it caused me physical agony, like I was an addict going through serious withdrawal. I open it up and start flipping through the pages at the back of the book. The back pages used to be in runes, but after seeing me astral project my way into a heart attack to help Shar the book decided that I was ready to read them. So, it translated them for me. That’s right, the Book of Shadows can think for itself. It’s what us witches call “animated,” which means it’s like it has a brain. I don’t know what my great grandmother did to make it like that, but it’s the truth. And here they are, quite a few interesting new spells. Aside from those to summon angels and saints, there are psychic daggers, fire bombs, magick boomerangs, charmed gloves, changing minds, astral projection, x-ray vision and the list goes on. There are a lot of spells for making talismans, sigils, potions, etc, too. One of them is the barrier against evil protection spell Great Grandmother Ruth mentioned. I’m just skimming a few of them now quickly because I need to get ready.

  I’m taking a hot shower because I don’t think taking a bath while you’re in the spirit world counts. Even if it does, I feel icky getting dressed in the morning if I don’t take my shower and it throws off my whole day. Yeah, you could probably say I’m a little obsessive compulsive.

  As I wash up with a soapy face cloth, I find myself thinking about poor Priscilla and Krystal and how Great Grandmother Ruth said we need to befriend them. It might be nice to take Krystal under my wing and teach her to use her gift. She’s a natural born witch like me so she has to learn to control her power after all. Since she’s only 12, she probably wouldn’t fit in with us to hang out, but we could befriend her in a mentor capacity. If Lia and Shar are OK with it. As for Priscilla, who was held prisoner by her own sister J for years, I can only imagine what a living hell that must have been, being forced to watch her kill witch after witch, most of whom weren’t even evil. Just hearing their screams would torture me. I’d never be able to get them out of my head. Plus, she was surrounded by demons, which had to be terrifying. And she was so weak – and looked half starved to death – when we found her. In fact, we had to carry her out of J’s lair because her legs weren’t strong enough for her to walk properly because she didn’t have room to stand up in her small cell. I wonder if J let her minions rape her. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if she did that to her own sister. She has scars on her breasts that look like they were made by claws and bruises all over her. Fortunately, some of those bruises are on her legs so the cops must have bought their story about walking through the woods. Thank Lord and Lady, J wanted to sacrifice Krystal because she was a virgin, which would’ve saved her from being raped.

  Now I
can’t stop thinking about Priscilla being raped and I’m shivering. It’s bad enough I have PTSD from the shooting; I can only imagine what PTSD from being raped would be like. I think you would feel like you were experiencing hell on earth. If I was raped, I think I’d panic every time a guy checked me out, that I’d see all men as potential rapists. It would be so hard to be in a relationship, too. You’d probably get rape flashbacks every time you have sex. Please, Lord and Lady, don’t ever let me or my friends get raped. And please help Krystal and Priscilla recover from the trauma they endured.

  Part of me is tempted to read Priscilla’s mind when I see her so I can really understand what she’s been through, but I fear that what I might see could add to my own trauma. Still, if at some point she wants me to go through her mind and erase some of her worst memories I’ll do it. Better for me to have the occasional rape nightmare than to have her re-live all of the shit she’s been through on a daily basis.

  I shut the shower off and step out. As I dry off, I wonder if Priscilla is a witch. It tends to run in families and J was one so it stands to reason that Priscilla could’ve inherited the gift, too. Her prison cell had some kind of warding symbol on the ground, so that might’ve been something to prevent her from using magick. Plus, the cell’s bars seemed to contain mercury, which would’ve blocked her from doing anything magickal beyond them. In other words, even if she could create fire balls in her hands, she wouldn’t have been able to hurl them through the bars to get J. And when they took her out of the cell they would’ve put one of those mercury-containing circles around her neck like those demons tried to do to us.

  I put my bathrobe on and walk across the hall to my room. Once inside, I shut and lock the door. Then I take the bathrobe off and hang it back on my closet door.

  I get dressed, putting on my Bowie Earthling t-shirt and my comfortable black jeans, as opposed to my skintight ones, along with my Perfect Balance sneakers with the neon orange laces. Yes, my love of vintage shit extends to neon colors straight out of the ‘80s. I’m weird like that.