Beneath An Ivy Moon (Legacy Of Magick Series, Book 4) (11 page)

“Maybe that’s because you shouldn’t be in this area,” said a familiar, annoyed voice.

I jolted, but managed to toss a sneer over my shoulder. There stood Nathan Pogue, wearing a distressed brown leather jacket, a white t-shirt and jeans. “Good evening, Mr. Pogue,” I said in my most formal tone.

Cypress arched a brow. “So, this is Nathan Pogue?”

“Yup,” I said, wondering what she was up to. I’d filled her in on the conversation we’d had in Autumn’s office, and about what had happened that day when he’d helped me out in the parking lot with the drunk Frat boys.

Cypress drew herself up, and stuck out her hand to Nathan, her bracelets jingling.

He automatically went to shake her hand, and when their hands met, I watched him jolt. “You’re a practitioner as well,” he said, focusing on Cypress. “You’re a Witch... but there’s more,” his eyes narrowed as he considered.

“You could say that...” Cypress smiled.

I watched my best friend have an energetic face off with Nathan. Their eyes locked as she clasped his hand, and the bangles on her wrist started to glow slightly. Cypress stored energy in those bracelets, and she could zap adversaries hard with that energy if she felt threatened or was magickally attacked.

Knowing this might take some time, I dug in my bag for the licorice. “Cypress,” I murmured after a few moments, “don’t fry him.”

“We’re merely getting acquainted.” Cypress tossed her head. “Aren’t we, Nathan?” She finally let go of his hand, and stepped back.

Nathan didn’t move a muscle. As I’d expected, he acted like someone had smacked him between the eyes with a two by four. Cypress often had that effect on males. If I didn’t love her so much, it would seriously piss me off. I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Earth to Pogue,” I said.

His eyes shot to mine. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Hey.” I smacked his arm lightly so he’d snap out of whatever mojo Cypress had used on him. “Have you been following us tonight?” I asked.

Nathan shook his head and eyeballed Cypress, actually taking a step away from her. He turned to consider me. “Following you? Hardly. I was only keeping an eye on the archeological site. Making sure it was protected from vandalism.”

“Why? Are you worried someone will break in?” I said.

“With the rumors about the dig being cursed,” he said, “I didn’t want students to be messing around with, or taking things from the site.”

“What would they possibly be interested in stealing?” I asked, genuinely confused. “Stones from the foundation?” I took a bite of the candy.

“Did I overhear you say that you were using a recorder, earlier?” he changed the subject.

“Eavesdropping is rude,” I said around the licorice.

“So is talking with your mouth full,” he shot back.

“You’re as fussy as my great-aunt,” I said, slanting my eyes towards Cypress. She was trying not to laugh.

Nathan seemed to pucker up at my comment. “You have leaves in the fringe of your poncho.” Nathan narrowed his eyes at us. “Where else have you two been tonight?”

I glanced down, brushing at the bits of dried leaves. “We were investigating at the campus cemetery.”

“What? Why would you do that?” Nathan asked.

“To try and catch some evidence and maybe a few EVPs of course.” I rolled my eyes and finished the licorice.

“Gods save me from amateurs,” he muttered.

“Oh, and you’re what?” I laughed. “A professional?”

“Yes. I’ve studied parapsychology,” Nathan said.

I glanced over at Cypress. “I feel safer already, don’t you?”

Nathan pointed at us. “
You’re
the ones who got rousted out tonight by campus security.”

I gave him my snootiest expression. “No, that would have been the sorority pledges taking selfies by the founder’s tombstone in the cemetery.”

Cypress flashed a smug grin. “We on the other hand, were sitting under the trees, quietly observing the area,” she said. “The group of girls walked right by— never even saw us.”

“Neither did the security guard,” I added.

Nathan shook his head. “I’m walking you two back to your dorms. You shouldn’t be out here,” he said.

“Well thank goodness,” I said. “A big strong man came along to save us!”

Ignoring the snark, Nathan reached out and snagged me by the elbow. He started to reach for Cypress and clearly thought better of it. “Cypress,” he said politely as she sailed past him.

“We were leaving anyway,” I pointed out as he tugged me along.

“I’m sure you were.” Nathan followed Cypress through the little gardens beside the history building. “But this way I can be sure you get back to your dorm, safely,” he said.

I tried to tug my arm free. “I don’t know how I managed before you came along, Pogue.”

“I am trying to be polite,” Nathan said through his teeth.

Cypress grinned at us from over her shoulder. “Oh honey, it’s sweet that you
think
you are trying to be.”

“Listen to me,” Nathan said, as we all stopped on the sidewalk in front of the parking lot. “I don’t believe that the area is safe
energetically
. Especially not for other practitioners, and definitely not under a full moon.”

A flash of insight hit me hard. “You think the site was used for dark magick, don’t you?”

Nathan’s eyes popped wide. “I didn’t say that.”

“No,” I said. “You didn’t have to say that. But I
knew
anyway.”

“Ivy’s an intuitive.” Cypress hooked a thumb in my direction. “A very good one.”

Nathan shifted his gaze from Cypress to me. He seemed to be weighing his next words. “I think it’s very possible some sort of intense magick happened there in the past.”

“Something has you scared.” I realized.

“Not scared,” Nathan said. “Cautious. Very cautious, until I figure out what sort of magick went down in that location.”

“And what makes you think
intense
magick went down there?” I asked him.

“Experience. I’ve seen a few things out East in other historic sites...” Nathan glanced around and saw a few other people in the area. “Let’s not discuss this here.”

I couldn’t help it. My curiosity was piqued.
Him studying parapsychology aside, how exactly would Nathan know about the lingering effects of magick on a site?
“I think we should discuss all of this with my family. And soon,” I said.

Nathan considered that for a moment, and seemed to give in. “Meet me at the Library, Monday afternoon. I managed to make an appointment with your brother at one o’clock. We can talk afterwards.”

“Fine.” I nodded in agreement.

“Fine,” he repeated, and stepped between Cypress and me. “Now, I’m walking you back to your dorm.”

Cypress tipped her head over to one side to grin at him. “Trust me Pogue, we’re more than capable of seeing ourselves home.” She waited a beat. “We’re Witches, after all.”

“Humor me,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Why should I do that?”

“It would make
me
feel better.” Nathan made an ‘after you’ gesture.

“Oh for goddess sake.” I rolled my eyes. “Come on Cy,” I grabbed her arm and marched off.

Nathan fell into step behind us, and to my surprise he did escort us all the way back across campus. He stood at the bottom of the steps at Crowly Hall and waited until we both went inside.

Once the main doors shut behind us I began to laugh. “I can’t decide if that was high handed or chivalrous,” I said.

“Hmmm...” Cypress stepped into the lobby and shot a grin over her shoulder. “Maybe it was a little of both.”

The lobby was deserted, so we settled into the little couch that faced the fireplace. I squinted up at the portrait of Victoria Crowly and considered what we’d seen tonight.
So Victoria had a younger sister...
“I think it’s interesting that the only crypt in those cemeteries belongs to Melinda,” I said.

“Well, she died young, maybe the husband wanted something more substantial than a tombstone to mark his wife’s resting place,” Cypress said, resting her head back against the couch. She sighed and closed her eyes.

The lights in the room began to flicker. “The lights are blinking again.” I patted Cypress’ arm to get her attention.

She snapped her head up from the back of the couch. “It’s colder too,” Cypress said, her breath showing visibly against the cold air.

Melinda
... a female voice drifted through the lobby.

“Did you hear that?’ I asked Cy.

Cypress nodded. “You think that’s Victoria?”

I stared at the old painting of the founder of our college. “Victoria, we’re talking about your sister, Melinda,” I said conversationally to the portrait. “We visited her grave tonight.” My breath caught when I felt a slight tremble under my backside.

“The couch is shaking.” Cypress reached for my hand.

“You’ve got our attention,” I said, focusing on the portrait. “What are you trying to tell us?”

As if in answer, one of the ugly silk flower arrangements tipped over on the mantle with a loud crash.

We both jumped to our feet. I whipped my head around, watching to see what would happen next. But as suddenly as it had began, the lights stopped flickering, and began to burn true. I let out my breath slowly, and the room fell silent.

“Well, that was unexpected,” Cypress said. She moved cautiously to the mantle, picking up the vase of fake flowers to put it back in place.

Behind us the front doors opened, and we both jumped nervously as several residents came in together laughing and talking. I patted my chest and let out a nervous laugh. “Sheesh,” I managed.

“Let’s go up to our room. And talk in private,” Cypress said as the girls came into the lobby.

I nodded in agreement. It took everything I had to calmly say goodnight to the other residents, and walk casually out. Silently, we climbed the stairs to the third floor and made our way down the hall.

I unlocked our door and hit the lights. “Shit!” I gasped, stopping dead in surprise.

Cypress bumped solidly into me. “What?” she said.

At a loss for words I simply pointed. Our dorm room had been rearranged. The bunk beds were now on the opposite wall. The wooden desks stacked on top of each other, and our two desk chairs were balancing precariously on top of the desks, defying gravity.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Once I’d gotten over the surprise, I switched over to record and document mode pretty quickly. I pulled out my camera, and we’d stayed right inside the door while I took several shots from different angles. Cypress stayed beside me and took a video of the bizarre furniture arrangement with her cell phone. The freakiest part of the whole experience happened after I set my camera down. I’d reached for one of the gravity defying chairs and they both tumbled down— right before I could touch them.

I managed to jump back from the crashing chairs in the nick of time. And that too, along with me letting out a loud squeak in surprise, had been captured by Cy’s video recording. She emailed me the recording immediately so we’d have a back up. After that there was nothing we could do but clean up and clear out. It took the two of us a couple of hours to put everything back to rights.

Once we finished putting the furniture back in place, we got to the ‘clearing out” portion of the evening. We sat down on the floor and worked a protection spell together. We banished any lingering negativity, and Cypress sprinkled red brick dust along our threshold to repel anything
unwanted
from crossing the threshold of our room, while I arranged empowered, protective crystals along the windowsill to repel ghosts.

Exhausted, we tumbled into bed, and slept hard. We didn’t have the opportunity to go over the audio recording we’d made at the cemetery until the next morning. After listening to the tape twice, we were forced to admit that it had yielded nothing but the sorority girls’ nervous chatter.

On Monday morning, I printed out my cemetery photos. But I was so busy admiring the way I’d captured the full harvest moon shining through the trees that I had almost missed something important.

In one of my photos, a suspicious blue-green smear of light had showed up. And it seemed to be hovering in mid-air over Melinda Harris Easton’s crypt. I went back, double checked everything, making sure it wasn’t a printing error or glitch. But the image remained.

I stood at the work counter surrounded by other photography students and tried to stay composed as I studied my newest photos. My intuition was screaming at me again. That sense of unease that I’d first perceived in the library was back.
Ever since they started the construction for the new museum on campus, things had gotten spooky. The discovery of the human remains, and the foundation of that house had obviously opened a paranormal can of worms.

Forcing myself to stay calm, I put everything I had from my research on the urban legends of the haunting at Crowly Hall, the cemetery photos, and the pictures of our rearranged room in a big manila envelope. I secured the envelope in my favorite magickally themed messenger bag. Large and antique gold, the bag boasted an Ouija Board screen printed on the front.

Somehow, that seemed entirely appropriate.

Cypress was going to meet me for lunch at the Student Union to discuss everything that we knew so far. At noon I walked in to find her standing waiting for me inside the doors of the cafeteria. As usual she was surrounded by guys, and she looked gorgeous. Her dark hair flowed into spiral curls and fell over the shoulders of her ivory shirt. A colorful scarf in reds and oranges was wrapped loosely around her neck. Skinny jeans tucked into brown boots gave her a sort of Boho-chic vibe.

“Hey, Cy.” I waved to get her attention, and she smoothly extracted herself from her many admirers. I mentally rolled my eyes, but did not comment.

We selected our food, took our trays over to an out-of-the-way table, and settled in where we would be less likely to be overheard. I draped my black lace shawl over my chair, smoothed the skirt of my layered maxi dress carefully down and sat. The dress was satisfactorily flowing and witchy, in layers of forest green and soft black.