Red House (2 page)

I reached for the only thing I had left–magic. The magic inside me, the magic all around and in the land on which I had made my home. I had a connection to that land, from living in the house, from growing flowers and herbs and vegetables in the soil, from dancing barefoot in the grass bathed in light from the full moon and summer fireflies. I reached for that connection, took strength from it, sent my will into it, and asked it for help.

A strong eddy of water lifted me. I grabbed the window casing, got one foot on the ledge. Then I slipped, crying out as I fell back into the water. It swirled around me and I let myself sink to the ground, digging at the dirt with stabbing fingers. I had no chant or spell or incantation, just the visualization of launching out of the water all the way to the roof. Gathering all the magical energy I could conjure, I fired it into the ground beneath.

The tricky part of both physics and magic was gambling that the equal and opposite reaction of whatever a witch did wouldn't kill them. I shot through the water, through the air, and crashed onto my roof like a ton of bricks. And promptly passed out.

I don’t know how long it took before someone came along in their fishing boat and helped me. Once I finally woke I sang to myself as a distraction, a mish mash of random songs and stray snatches of lyrics. Anything to help me focus and not give in to shock. I stayed in a shelter set up in a church until Daniel finally found me.

I was not there to see the water finally push my house off the foundation, or to witness a bigger tree become uprooted and crash down on top of what used to be my living room. That sight was waiting for me after the flood waters receded and I could come home to find I had no home anymore.

It was daylight. Daniel couldn’t be with me because of the hour, so there was no one there to see me fall to the saturated ground, shaking and heartsick. I had nothing left.

Staying at my cousin’s house, which fortunately had been spared the worst with only the cellar taking on water, the debris of my life floated through my mind. In the last case I did for my business, Mathis Paranormal Investigations, my car was destroyed and my house trashed. Daniel let me borrow his SUV but I refused to let him pay for the damage to my house. I let the lease on my office go and didn’t renew my private investigator’s license so I had money for repairs instead. The Broom Closet, the metaphysical store where I rented space, still bought homemade candles and other supplies from me, so I tried to get by on that. But the flood took that away, too, filling the shop with water and mud, destroying everything. I’d lost my business, my side job, and my home. The possessions I had left were so few they fit in a backpack. I had no flood insurance and I was so broke I didn’t have enough money to buy a meal off the dollar menu at a fast food joint. It was the closest I’d ever come to a nervous breakdown.

The person I wanted to see most had disappeared from my life as quickly as he came and I had no idea where to find him. For all I knew, Blake Harvill wouldn’t want me to find him. I sank into a colorless depression that gathered me tight in its embrace. I welcomed it, letting it wash over me in a slow motion parody of the flood that brought my life to a standstill.

After it became apparent there was no way to salvage my own home, I spent my days helping to fill sandbags, volunteering to clean, coming back to Daniel’s house sick from allergies and exhausted. In the evenings Daniel went out to do what help he could at night, and I wandered his house like a drifting spirit. As my life slowly adjusted to this new normal, calls began trickling in to the cellphone I’d used for my business. Pretty soon it became evident it was Ghosts Gone Wild out there. I went back to work, needing the money and something to do.

* * * *

I lay in bed, not wanting to go back to sleep after dreaming about the flood again. Didn’t much want to keep obsessing over my problems either. Five minutes, maybe ten, I got tired of that and went downstairs. Neko Case echoed from the living room. Daniel had a tendency to get restless the closer it got to dawn, as if he didn’t want the night to end. I found him swaying to the music, a drink in one hand.

“Hey, Bubba.”

He gave me a smile as he sang along to
Furnace Room Lullaby
. His voice suited the old-timey feel of the song beautifully. During a break in the vocals he said, “Do you know how to waltz?”

“No,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Waving a hand, he set his glass on the coffee table. “Just fake it.”

He twirled me around the room and I did my best not to step on his feet. The song came to an end, replaced by Dolly Parton. I escaped to one of the overstuffed wing chairs flanking the coffee table. “What’re you drinking tonight, Bubba?”

“Mmm.” He dropped onto the middle of the sofa. “Sure you wanna know?”

I nodded. Daniel drank blood of course, and he liked to make mixed drinks with it, too. It used to bother me but lately it seemed perfectly normal. I'd accepted the fact that he was a vampire and my ancestor pretty easily, but his blood drinking had taken a little longer to get used to.

“I juiced a few strawberries and a lime. Added some of that mint liqueur I made. Some spiced rum, a little club soda, and a couple shots of O positive. I call it a Havana Night.”

“Sounds…tasty.”

“So what’s going on, Roxie?”

I didn’t have the energy to pretend I didn’t know what he meant. “I don’t know. I’m off my game, I guess. He broke my stuff.” That bothered me more than I wanted to admit.

“Got any ideas on why he was at that house and not the Carnton Plantation?”

“None whatsoever.” I was silent for a long moment. “You know I’ve been getting more and more calls.”

He nodded. “So let’s saddle up, cowgirl. There’s ghosts need bustin’.”

“Now I know you’re drunk, talking like that.”

Patsy Cline filled the room, Daniel singing along to
Walking After Midnight
. Good. That kept him from asking why it hurt so much when the ghost slammed into me. I didn’t have an answer for that, either.

Chapter 2

I stared at the antique radio, a 1933 Majestic 59 studio deco tombstone model. That’s what the guy told us, anyway. I had no idea. It just looked like a cool old radio to me. It sat on the client’s breakfast nook, the glossy varnished wood shining under a hanging light fixture. Hands on my knees, I leaned over to take a closer look, first with my glasses on, then without. Glasses in hand, I let my vision slide to the auric field and took a good look at the energy coming from the radio. It wasn’t plugged in but there was definitely power there. A lovely blue, like clear twilight after a sudden rain, shimmered around it.

“And it’ll just kinda come on by itself?” I asked.

The client nodded. “When I have it plugged it I get nothing, not even local stations. But when it’s unplugged it plays all kinds of stuff. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Daniel stood across from me. I caught a suspicious twinkle in his blue eyes but saw nothing other than the usual yellow-gold in his aura that indicated his great self-control. I liked seeing that, what with him being a vampire and all. “What does it play?” he said.

An unhelpful shrug from the client. “I think it’s old radio shows. I don’t really know. Most of the music I’ve never heard before.”

I straightened but didn’t replace my glasses. “Have you noticed any pattern to it?” The guy gave me a blank look so I elaborated. “Does it happen at the same time of day? When there’s a storm? Does the power flash when it happens? Anything like that?”

“I’m not home during the day so for all I know it could play then. I’ve heard it at different times in the night. It’ll wake me up sometimes.” He rubbed his face, clearly impatient with this weirdness that had intruded on his life. Some clients were like that. “Look, if you can’t make it stop I’m just gonna take it out back and take a sledgehammer to the damn thing. Pisses me off that I paid good money for this antique thing, but who’d want to buy it from me when it turns on and off all by itself?”

Daniel and I exchanged a look. We had us a real live one here. A real live idiot. But what the hell, he was paying me.

The client’s cellphone erupted with aggressively cheerful suburban country. He answered it and as he stepped out of the kitchen told us it was a very important business call he needed to take.

Daniel walked around the table to stand next to me. “What’s this guy do again?”

“He told me he directs music videos.” I ran a finger across the smooth paneling of the radio.

“Oh yeah? Who’s he directed? Kings of Leon? Ooh, does he know Jack White?”

“Bubba.” I tilted my head and raised an eyebrow. “I’m very proud of you for learning some newer artists, especially local ones. I know how reluctant you’ve been to listen to anything past the last Journey record.” He made a face and I continued. “This guy does country videos.”

“Well, I like country music. Older country, though. So, ah.” He pointed at the radio. “You think you can get it to work?”

“He had it plugged in when we got here and it didn’t work. I don’t know anything about radio repair.” Catching the look on his face, I realized he meant something quite different. “Oh. You want me to…”

“Use your mojo.” He finished for me. “You know.” He wagged his eyebrows. “Work a little woo-woo on it.”

I glared at him. It had been weeks since I worked any magic and he knew it.

“I don’t know if I can do that. Even before, I don’t know that I could have. And woo-woo? Really?”

An apologetic smile softened the blow to my dignity. “No harm in trying, huh?”

He was right. It wasn’t as if my life had suffered during these past weeks because of a lack of magic. No, there were plenty of other reasons my life had turned to crap. Not working magic seemed to be a side effect. Right after the flood I tried lighting a candle in Daniel’s kitchen and failed. I hadn’t tried since. Was it shock over everything that happened? Depression? I didn’t know and wasn’t sure I cared. I was tired of it, though, and ready to try.

And I had to admit the radio had me curious. What exactly did the guy mean by old radio shows? I could think of several I’d read about that would be cool to hear coming out of this antique.

I folded my glasses, hooking them on my shirt front. Gesturing with my chin, I said, “Make sure he’s not too close.”

Daniel nodded, making his way with preternatural silence and speed to the door between the kitchen and the room the client retreated to for his phone call. After listening for a long moment Daniel returned to my side with the same skill. “Go to it.”

I slowed my breathing, tried to still all the thoughts swirling in my head. Reached deep inside to that place where the magic lay hidden, then reached for the energy flowing around me. In theory, connecting any two sources of energy–like what was within me and what existed in the world around me–would make any magical working stronger and more likely to succeed. I didn’t feel like I had a whole lot of my own power these days. My curiosity about the radio gave things a boost, though. I laid my hand on its smooth surface, pushed my will into its wires, and felt a snap of energy as it sprang to life.

The music started mid-song, an old-fashioned alto accompanied by a deep bass backup singer and guitar playing that seemed so familiar. I leaned over the radio as if proximity would give me answers, fingers tapping the table softly in rhythm. A smile like Christmas morning spread over Daniel’s face, telling me he’d placed the song. Rather than ask, I searched the music library in my brain until I got it. It was the guitar that gave it away–the Carter Scratch, by the woman who invented it.

“The Carter Family,” I said. “That’s Sara singing, her husband A.P. in the background.”

“And Mother Maybelle on guitar.” His voice trembled with the same excitement I felt. “
I’m Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes
, that’s the song. He said it plays old radio shows, do you suppose–’’

I shushed him as the song ended and the voice of a disc jockey started. He identified the station as XERA, the Sunshine Station Between The Nations.

I slapped the table. “Border radio!” For several decades starting in the thirties, some of the most popular radio shows in the country originated from just across the border in Mexico.

“Johnny Cash used to listen to the Carter Family show when he was a child in Arkansas. Wonder if he ever dreamed he’d grow up to marry one of Maybelle’s daughters?”

The dial jumped, changing the station. “Whoa! I didn’t make it do that. At least, I don’t think I did.”

This time it was the Red Hot And Blue show from Memphis, run by Dewey Phillips, the first man to play Elvis Presley on the radio. After a few minutes of that a slight bump on the dial moved it to WDIA, also out of Memphis, once the premier rhythm and blues station in Bluff City. Then on to the King Biscuit Time blues program. The John R. show out of right here in Nashville. Alan Freed, Wolfman Jack, The Louisiana Hayride and the Grand Ole Opry. Another piece of music history was revealed with every movement of the dial. Between the two of us, Daniel and I could identify every song, every dj, every program. We were having so much fun listening to the music we didn’t even notice when the client came back in the kitchen.

“You actually know what all this geezer crap is?” Impatience and scorn dripped from the client’s voice.