Spirits Rising (8 page)

“Was there anything inside?”

I shook my head. “Not even a note. It’s just a cheap store-bought bag, but I kept it all these years. I went through this abandonment phase as a teenager and I spent a lot of time adding and removing beads, stuffing it with things. I went through a glitzy-bead phase when I was fifteen and covered it in pink sparkles.” I shuddered. “It took mom a week to pick the glue off the leather. Now, I just keep little things in it that are important to me. It’s not so much about whoever gave it to me, but rather that it reminds me of the blessed life I’ve had.”

Understanding dawned on his face. He nodded and said, “Is there anything I can carry?”

“Get Mrs. Saunders’s walker out of the backseat. We can both help her up the hill.”

The scenery from the United Church cemetery was, dare I say it, spooky. On a clear day, the cemetery overlooked the bay. You could see the boats coming in and out, the whale-watching tour boats, and iceberg seekers, and regular locals with their boats.

Tonight, thick fog covered the water and rolled over much of the hill we stood on. The drizzle dampened my hair and my cheeks and nose turned cold. I should have worn a hat. All in all, it was a movie-perfect scene for calling forth spirits and putting them back into their eternal rest.

With Jeremy’s help, we slowly made our way up the path to the graveyard. We were about halfway up, when I heard a vehicle approach and saw the headlights through the haze. The four-way flashers went on and we heard the distinctive thump of car doors. We stopped.

“Miss Mills?” a voice called out.

My hopes brightened a little. “Manny!” I’d called his mother earlier who said, in no uncertain terms, that her son would not be allowed to practice witchcraft. So, when Manny approached with his father—ah, that explained why he’d called me Miss Mills—I was surprised.

“Miss Mills,” David said when he and Manny reached me, his voice strained from rushing in the cold uphill, “Manuel has something to say to you.”

Manny was puffing, and I suspected only part of his reddened face was from the cold. I let him catch his breath and waited. Jeremy kept the umbrella over Mrs. Saunders.

“Um, Rach-Miss Mills, I’m really sorry I got you in trouble with Dad. I shouldn’t’ve been messin’ ’round with witchcraft and spells. And I’m real sorry that you had to lie to the Mounties for me. Folks here know what’s goin’ on, for real, but no one wants to tell the Mounties ’cause they’re Mainlanders and they aren’t going to believe stuff about spirits.” He gave me an apologetic look. “Well, I guess we’re both Mainlanders, too, but you know what I mean.”

I did know what he was trying to say. Most people would have completely melted down at seeing spirits roaming the streets; here, my neighbours reacted by telling stories of the first ghosts they’d ever seen and pumping rounds into rifles.

A chill went through me and my headache pounded in time with my heart. “Manny, what are you trying to say?”

Manny looked at his father, and back down at the ground. In a weak voice, he said, “I was the one who brought these things here, so I want to help put them back.”

I glanced at David, who was staring at me, his chin held high. “Manuel can help this one time.”

I nodded my thanks. Then, I looked at Manny. “That takes courage, Manny.” Voices began to echo in my mind. “And I really could use your help.”

“What do I need to do?” Manny asked, his voice shaking.

“No witchcraft,” David said, his voice firm and unyielding.

I rolled my eyes. We were in a graveyard, about to perform a dangerous and powerful ritual, and he was still worried about witchcraft.  I reined in my temper and thought about how to word my answer in terms he’d understand. “Manny, I need you to tell the spirits to go back where they belong. That’s all.”

“That’s it?”

I nodded at the wide-eyed boy. God, he looked so scared. “That’s it.” I looked at David, who seemed placated by my response. Then I said to David, “I need you to pray.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” I snapped back. “I need all the help I can get. When Mrs. Saunders prayed, it sent them away. So, pray.”

David muttered something about prayer being all powerful. I ignored him, to avoid the snarky remark that I would no doubt want to make.

Mrs. Saunders looked at me, her hands shaking, making her rosary beads click against each other like a wind chime. “What do you want me to say?”

I shrugged. “Whatever you normally pray.”

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” the woman’s voice shook but said the words clearly. She gripped her rosary and the words sent a chill through my body. Faith is power.

Mrs. Saunders gave me a nod and she closed her eyes. A thrum of power began to emanate from her as she mouthed her Hail Mary. I took a steadying deep breath. That woman was strong, in every sense of the word.

The rain splashed against my face as I stood in the graveyard, eyes closed, concentrating. I blocked out my doubt over my abilities. I set aside my anxiety over the situation. I accepted that David O’Toole, the man who was putting harassing and offensive material in my mailbox, was standing next to me. I let the cares and worries of life slosh off my body with the rain.

I entered a place of quiet stillness. My heart rate slowed. My focus turned to nothing but the banishing, which was just a fancy word to describe me bullying the spirits back into the grave. I’m sure I’ve had worse plans and this was towards the bottom of the good-idea list. But, it was all I could come up with and I had to try something.

It took me three minutes to gain enough focus to begin calling the spirits to me. The comfort of Mrs. Saunders’s power no doubt helped. The knowledge that she was going to smite David O’Toole might have helped, too.

I wore my pentacle around my neck, a gift from my best friend in high school. I wasn’t into pentacles and all that, but it was a gift, so it represented friendship more than anything.  The rabbit’s-foot necklace and the medicine bag of my biological mother were wrapped around the wrist of one hand. I felt the stir of my own, minor talent.

But what I lacked in talent, I had in sensitivity. I was closer to the dead than most.

“Spirits of the Skraelings, the red Indians, the Beothuk, countless others who have roamed this land, come to me. Come and find peace. Spirits of the Norsemen, the Vikings, the warriors, explorers and priests, come to this site. Come and find peace.”

The ground shook, and I felt more than heard the pounding of spirit energy rushing towards us. Mrs. Saunders grabbed my pants leg and recited her Hail Mary a lot faster, nearly slurring her words.

I gathered my will and felt a flimsy sphere of power encompass both of us. I was never a good caster and I knew it wouldn’t hold if they decided to slam against us. Tears rolled down my cheeks as abject fear shook me, but I held on, repeating the words.

Every time Mrs Saunders called on Jesus or the Virgin, a little extra power zapped through the circle. Damn, that woman was more powerful than any priestess I’d ever met. Which goes to show, I suppose, don’t judge by the religion or the package.

Next to us, Manny O’Toole whispered, though I couldn’t hear his words. A little spark of power thrummed from him. Nothing substantial, but noticeable all the same. No wonder he felt conflicted, living in a home that was extremely spiritual, and yet rejected all forms of spirituality but one.

I put that aside. Perhaps later, I could speak with David and Irene, see if they’d let me help Manny. For now, however, I needed to control the ancient spirits.

The first indication that my calling was working was the pounding in my temples. I’d had a nonstop headache since Manny called these spirits forth, but I was accustomed to it. This sensation was more throbbing and painful. I fought against the need to scream and collapse on the ground. I fought against the desire to rip my hair out.

I fought.

A formless, pervasive psychic presence pressed against my senses, but I stood firm. I would not let a bunch of millennia-old spirits boss me around.

I gulped. I was so out of my depth.

I pushed aside the terror and uncertainty, pouring my energy into calling the spirits to me. In the blurred edges of reality, I heard cars chugging up the foggy hill behind us, leaves rustling, water crashing against the shore, and the thud of my own heart. The occasional wail of police sirens pierced the night, though even that sound was faded, distant . . . detached.

The dead occupied my thoughts. Forgotten languages, not spoken in millennia, flooded my consciousness.  I heard the stirring of every single spirit within the sound of my voice. And there were a lot of them buried under the very ground where I stood.

Oh crap.

Focus, Rachel, focus.

I inched towards contact. I felt the spirits waking and turning their attention to me. Cold sweat pooled around the waist of my jeans and I shivered, though that came more likely from the unrelenting wind howling around me. If I did this wrong, I could call up even more spirits from their places of rest. If there was one thing I excelled at, it was attracting the attention of the dead.

Just another minute, I thought to myself. I steadied my breathing. I was ready.

“What is taking so long?” David shouted in my ear.

There are days that murder just doesn’t seem like that bad a thing. I remember arguing in an ethics class that we could all kill another human being under the perfect storm of circumstances. I stood there, in the single-digit temperatures, autumn mist now turned to rain and drenching me, and the bone-chilling wind blowing off the Atlantic Ocean two hundred feet from where I stood, and I stared at David, thinking this was that perfect storm of circumstances.

“Shut up,” I growled. The power I’d been holding drained out from me and my vision blurred from the unexpected release. The sky was darker than it had been, and Manny now held a flashlight. In the distance, sirens wailed and police lights flashed. “How much time did we lose?”

Jeremy pulled up his jacket sleeve to see his watch. “You were at it for about twenty minutes.”

“Shit,” I said. “I was close, too.” I glared at David. “I’ll have to start over. Don’t speak. At all.”

David opened his mouth to argue, but Mrs. Saunders cracked him against the back of the calves with her cane. She sat on her walker’s seat, a blanket wrapped around her, Manny holding an umbrella over her bundled form.

She shook her finger at David. “You listen ’ere, my son, I’ve had enough of your foolishness. You’re gonna shut your mouth, that’s what you’re gonna do. Not anodder peep, you ’ear me? Not a peep.” She squared her shoulders. “I’ll be having a talk with that pastor of yours as soon as this is over with, that’s what I’ll be doin’. You harassing good people like Rachel with those religious tracts and she out risking her life. Arsehole.” She mumbled the last word under her breath.

David just stared at the old lady. So did I. What else do you do when a ninety-three-year-old woman hits you, scowls at you, and then swears at you? You shut up, that’s what you do.

I looked at Jeremy, who shrugged a shoulder but had a wide grin on his face. Manny had a shocked look on his face: the one children often have when they first see someone else stand up to a parent—and win.

I gathered up my bearings and started again. I whispered for the spirits only once and a crushing pressure pressed against my chest. I gasped out a breath, frantically trying to work my lungs. Beside me, Mrs. Saunders gasped, “Mother of God.”

I opened my eyes and saw the spirits walking in my direction. Some still in their shimmering ethereal form, fading in and out, as though this world and the other played tug of war with them.

“Lord preserve us,” David whispered. “Demons.”

A shiver shook my body and I pretended it was the cold rain splashing against my face. I gathered up my will and continued to call the spirits to me. These were the native peoples of the region’s history: average height, a range of skin from ruddy dark to paler tones, though all had dark brown or black hair.

The wardrobes varied as well, no doubt representing the many thousand years of peoples that settled the area: a historian’s wet dream. Weapons, clothing, and decorations all varied amongst the spirits, though more richly decorated than I suspected was true of them in life. Perhaps they carried their burial items with them in the afterlife.

My focus waned as I stared at the hundreds of spirits circling us, more appearing with each breath. None were the Viking spirits, however. How did I screw that up? Why didn’t they come? I’d called them, too.

Pain like I’ve never experienced gripped my soul. I fell to one knee, clutching myself, fruitless against the cutting, scratching, stabbing that shook me.

“Rachel!” Jeremy exclaimed and dropped down next to me. “What’s wrong?”

“I am what’s wrong,” a voice said in English. Not Newfie English, but the Queen’s English.

Jeremy helped me to my feet, though I still had to lean against him to remain upright. The spirits, both normal and flesh, parted the way. An old woman walked towards us. Her hair was grey and hung loosely over her shoulders. Two thin braids, richly decorated with leather, shells, and bone, framed her face. The old spirit leaned against a wooden walking stick.