Was Megan casting a protection spell, too?
No. She was drawing symbols on the floor with chalk. It was definitely a different spell, but which one? Did she know about the protection spell? Did Megan know Gamma was after her? Or was it a surprise ambush? If the Il Gaurdenarium spell was performed, Gamma couldn’t have entered her house. The spell could have saved her life.
“Lex? Are you alright?” Peter leaned forward, careful not to break the plane of the salt circle.
“I’m fine.” I pushed the disturbing thoughts aside and focused on the remaining ingredients.
The soil from the houseplant was next. Dirt particles drifted into the water and dissipated. I shook the bottle of vinegar and dumped five drops into the dirty water. “That’s it. Now, I’m going to say the spell. Please don’t get freaked out.”
“I think we’re well past you doing things that freak me out.”
I repositioned the book so I could read the tiny writing and then plunged both hands into the muddy water concoction.
“Valim exis aquis pertectium, mondai livectum pariesis,” I said slowly, careful to pronounce each word correctly. I repeated the line twice and closed my eyes.
Hopefully, I could remember the words, because I had to say them three more times with my eyes shut. “Valim exis aquis pertectium, mondai livectum pariesis.” I repeated the line two more times.
I opened my eyes.
Nothing looked or felt different.
“I wonder if it worked,” I said.
“When your eyes were closed, the flames on the candles disappeared and then shot back up a few inches.”
“Oh.”
What was I expecting? Purple smoke and the house shaking on its foundation? Maybe. Anything would have been cooler than a few flames getting low when my eyes were shut. What a disappointment.
Peter scratched his head. “Is that it?”
“I think so. That’s all the book says.”
“How will we know if it worked?”
“Short of finding a criminal and bribing him to break into the house, I don’t think we will know.”
“What happens if someone bad tries to enter? Do they get shocked or something?”
“Vanessa said that the person physically couldn’t enter. It’s impossible. But I don’t think they get shocked or burned or anything.”
“Like a force field?”
“I guess.” I silently read the page again. I had all the ingredients and I said the words correctly. It had to of worked. But how could I be certain? I had no idea what I was doing.
“I’m sure the spell is up and running,” Peter said, sensing my skepticism.
“I hope.” I blew out the candles. I suddenly felt silly sitting on the floor with the spell ingredients in front of me. “Do you want to go? I don’t think I want to hang around here anymore.”
Peter stood up. “Sure, I’ll go get the stuff.”
I cleaned up the mess, including vacuuming up the circle of salt, and hid the spell book underneath the floorboards. When I walked out to the living room, Emma was asleep on the couch with Scooby.
I put on my new coat and Peter grabbed the white plastic bag near the front door. The frigid air greeted us when we stepped outside. I pulled my scarf over my face and ran to Peter’s truck. Peter threw the bag in the truck bed and hurried into the cab.
My teeth were chattering uncontrollably. “Put the heat on.”
Peter turned on the engine and a blast of cold air sprayed from the vents.
“Ahhhh! It’s colder in here than it is outside.”
“Lex, it needs a few minutes to heat up. It’s ten degrees out.”
“Stupid Massachusetts,” I muttered. Then an idea hit me. “We have to go to New Orleans for spring break.” I closed my eyes and dreamed of the hot muggy weather that would be all too certain in Louisiana in April.
Peter backed out of the driveway. “You hate the hot weather.”
“No, I don’t. I love it.”
“Since when?”
“About the time it became so cold that I couldn’t feel my face. It’s only December! We still have three more months of this!”
Peter grinned. “Bathing suits and shorts do sound tempting.”
“And gumbo and shrimp!”
We drove in silence through the bare streets of Hazel Cove, both of us undoubtedly dreaming of warmer weather and spicy foods. When we came upon the bend near the Hazel Cove Cemetery, I said my silent prayer for the souls buried there and an extra one for my grandmother who now resided there. Peter pulled into the parking lot. It was completely empty.
“Some place to be on Christmas morning,” I said quietly. The eight-foot tall stone fence gradually melted into the wrought iron front gates.
“It’s the perfect place to be.” Peter squeezed my knee. “I wish my father wasn’t cremated and I could visit him on Christmas day. Come on, let’s go.”
Peter lifted the white plastic bag from the truck bed and we walked to the entrance. He pushed against the thick iron bars and the gate groaned open. Snow covered everything - the grass, the trees, the tombstones. The sun was low in the sky, but it was so cloudy that it felt like dusk instead of early morning.
We followed the familiar trail up the hill and under the over-arching barren trees. The trail abruptly came to a fork. One path led to the new section of the cemetery and the other path to the historical section. We paused at the junction. Making a spur of the moment decision, I tugged Peter towards the new section of the cemetery.
A lone pine tree covered with snow and icicles was twenty feet away from the trail. We trudged though the knee-high snow up the small hill. Grandma Claudia’s grave was snuggled beside the tree. No tombstone marked my grandmother’s grave; only a wooden marker. According to the groundskeeper, it was too cold to put in the stone. We would have to wait until the ground thawed in the spring.
The wooden marker made the grave look barren and cold.
Peter reached into the plastic bag and pulled out the large oval of greenery. He placed the wreath, decorated with red ribbons and Christmas ornaments, next to the wooden grave marker.
“Thanks.” I exhaled loudly. “It’s much more….”
“I know.” Peter pulled me under his arm to shield me from the roaring wind.
It was freezing, especially standing in the snow, but I wasn’t as cold as I should have been. Peter’s warmth and my grandmother’s improved gravesite made me feel better. Warmer.
I glanced up to see if Peter was getting too cold, but he was smiling.
“What?”
Peter’s blue eyes, very far away at the time, refocused on my face. “I was thinking about her double chocolate chip cookies. She was seriously the best cook on the planet.”
His grin was infectious. My frozen cheeks spread into a smile. “Or the apple turnovers.”
Peter looked towards the heavens. “Do you remember when we stole that German chocolate cake in the middle of the night?”
“She was so mad. It was for some lady’s party the next day, but we assumed everything in that kitchen was made for us.”
“She caught us red-handed with chocolate all over our faces. We didn’t even bother with a fork and plate.”
“Oh, gosh,” I said. “How old were we?”
“Nine, maybe ten.”
Warm tears slid down my cheeks, even though I was smiling. “She washed our faces, took us to the store to get more ingredients - two towns over because that was the only one still open - and we had to bake another cake in the middle of the night.”
“Those were good times.”
Peter was right, those were good times. Times that we would never have again. It was too sad. “Let’s go see Bradley.”
The hill sloped downward at a steep angle and Peter guided me by the elbow so I wouldn’t fall. It was difficult sloshing through the snow, but we made our way back to the trail. Bradley’s grave was two hundred yards away in a more crowded section of the cemetery.
Bradley, my parent’s chauffeur and my life-long friend, was killed by the Gamma fraternity on Halloween. Actually, he was murdered on my birthday, during my parent’s annual costume party, at our old house in the Hallows. Bradley’s grave was easily recognizable by the frozen wildflowers propped up next to the stone. We’d brought them the last time we visited.
Peter replaced the frozen flowers with another Christmas wreath.
This part of the cemetery was wide open. There were no encroaching trees or bushes. I glanced around half expecting to see other people placing flowers on the graves of their loved ones. But there was no one.
Peter brushed the snow off Bradley’s stone. “Something wrong?”
I checked over my shoulder, but, again saw nothing.
“Lex?”
“I don’t know. I feel….”
“What?”
“Funny.”
Peter was at my side. “How so?”
“It feels like someone’s here. Someone’s watching us.”
He twirled around and canvassed the empty cemetery. “I don’t see anyone. Are you sure?”
“It’s probably nothing. I’m just paranoid.”
Peter looked skeptical of my reassessment of the situation.
“It’s this place.” I twirled my hand around, indicating our surroundings. “It’s unsettling, you know? After what happened here and all of my old nightmares.”
Now that I’d voiced my concerns, I recognized the feeling. It was the same sensation I felt when I suffered from a string of premonition-like nightmares a few months ago.
In my dreams, I was always in this cemetery. I always felt a presence watching me. Then a dark figure would step out of the shadows and chase me. The shadowed man, which I later assumed was William Van Curen, killed me in front of my father’s grave.
But the feeling I experienced in my dream, as if someone’s eyes were on me, was the same feeling I was having now.
“Lex, do you want to put this last wreath on your dad’s grave?”
“What?” I pulled myself out of my thoughts.
Peter held up the final Christmas wreath. “Do you want to put this on Ethan’s tombstone?”
“No.”
“Oh. I thought since you have three of them….”
“Ethan’s grave is empty. We can put that wreath on Megan Lackey’s gravestone.”
We walked through the snow. I peered over my shoulder again. Unable to shake the feeling we were being watched.
Peter kneeled down and placed the wreath next to a miniature Christmas tree that was already decorating Megan’s tombstone. Several other bouquets of flowers were around the grave.
“It looks nice,” I said.
A few weeks ago, Detective Henry and the Hazel Cove Police Department officially closed Megan’s murder case. Gamma pinned the murder on Simon, which was partially true. Simon was present the night Megan was murdered, but he wasn’t the only one.
Of course, William and Victor were never implicated or even suspected. It was all strategically put on Simon. And he obviously couldn’t defend himself - he was dead. The only silver lining was that Megan’s family received some closure. Bradley’s murder was never even investigated. To this day it was still classified as a suicide.
“You want to get out of here?” Peter asked rising to his feet.
“Really bad.”
As we walked back through the winding trail toward the front gates, my eyes scanned the surroundings. Was someone following us?
Peter pulled open the iron gates. His cell phone rang. “Oh, hey Mom. Yeah, we are leaving now.”
I pulled the iron gates closed, giving the cemetery one last sweep of the eyes. Something moved in my peripheral vision and I zoned in on the movement. To the far left, near the individual mausoleums, was a cluster of bushes and trees. The distance was far and I had to squint to see clearly. What was that? Was someone standing there?
I pushed the iron gates open and stepped back inside the cemetery. Was that a shadow? I squinted harder, willing my eyesight to become better. The tall bushes encroached upon the stone mausoleum, but nothing else was there. Only shadows.
“Lex?” Peter was off the phone and standing on the other side of the gates. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” I quickly stepped back through and shut the gates.
As I walked over the icy parking lot to Peter’s truck, I had to keep telling myself that my eyes were playing tricks on me. No one was there. It was only a shadow. Besides, who would be watching me in the cemetery on Christmas morning?
CHAPTER 10
“I don’t like the idea.” Peter looked highly annoyed - in a cute way.
“I’m sorry that you don’t,” I said sincerely.
Peter rolled his eyes and lowered the volume on the hockey game. I was sitting in the desk chair with my feet propped on the bed. I’d been enjoying our companionable silence, but apparently my trip to Boston was on Peter’s mind.
Peter scratched his head. “You’re sorry that I don’t like the idea, but you’re not changing your mind. Right?”
I put my finger in Sarah Ross’ journal to hold my place. I was hoping to avoid this conversation, but now it seemed inevitable. “I can’t.”
“You won’t,” Peter corrected. He tapped the remote control against the bottom of my fuzzy socks. “You are so stubborn.”
“No, I’m not.”
The corner of Peter’s mouth twitched, but he fought off the smile. “The fact that you said ‘no, I’m not,’ clearly demonstrates how stubborn you are.”
“I don’t want to fight with you.”
“And I don’t want to fight with you. Here’s an idea. Don’t go to a witch hunter’s church in Boston - on New Year’s Eve no less - with that killer James Van Curen. Or if you absolutely have to search that creep-show church, then wait and let me go with you.”
“Three things. First, it’s not New Year’s Eve. It’s New Year’s Eve day. I’m not spending New Year’s Eve with James.” I swayed my finger back and forth between Peter and me. “We will be spending New Year’s Eve together. Tomorrow night.”
Peter sighed. “And points two and three?”
“Two, you have to work the day shift at the Docks tomorrow, so you can’t go anyways and-”
“Is this point three?”
“No, this is point two and a half. I don’t want you and James together so soon. You two hate each other and now is not the time for any of that conflict to resurface. I need James’ help and our friendship is already on thin ice. I have to find that journal. And there is a good - no scratch that, a great - possibility that it’s hidden in the church.”
“I understand, but-”
I held up my finger. “And three, James is not a killer. His father was and his uncle is, but not James. He saved my life, remember? You’re always forgetting that tiny fact.”
“I don’t want you alone with him. What if something happens? What if he tries to hurt you?”
“I’m a witch, remember? I’ll zap him or levitate something at his head. He won’t know what hit him.”
Peter gave me a weak smile.
I nudged him with my foot. “Thank you for being so worried about me, but I’ll be okay. Really. We’ll be gone for a few hours and that will be that. End of story. Promise.”
Peter grunted and un-muted the hockey game. He didn’t agree with me, but I think he saw my point. Or maybe he knew I wasn’t going to budge. Maybe I was stubborn.
I re-opened Sarah Ross’ journal. My ancestor’s tiny handwriting covered every square inch of available white space. The Scottish dialect was a little difficult to read. The journal covered two years - from 1622 to 1624. Sarah lived with her mother, father and infant brother, Jamie, in East Lothian, Scotland.
Obviously, Sarah was a witch (why else would Grandma Claudia have kept the journal), but I hadn’t noticed anything significant in the first half of the book. Sarah recorded her daily life - mostly sewing and cooking - and she dutifull
y noted when anything strange occurred.
Sarah wasn’t as ignorant of the paranormal world as I was. She knew she had powers. When doors slammed shut and candles flickered and dishes rattled in their small cottage, Sarah knew she was the culprit.
What was interesting was the shame and remorse she felt whenever something supernatural happened. She treated her powers like they were a curse.
Sarah’s family was aware of what was happening to their only daughter. They, too, didn’t acknowledge the magic. The family gave a valiant effort to ignore Sarah’s supernatural powers. They tried to live a normal life.
I flipped through the pages, casually glancing up at the score of the Bruins game, feeling pretty content and cozy in my bedroom with Peter. The television was on in the living room, but I knew Emma wasn’t watching the screen. She was still completely absorbed by the fireflies.
I turned the page.
Goosebumps rippled down my arms and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Sketched in the middle of the page, with Sarah’s words completely surrounding it, was a pair of eyes. Two perfectly shaped eyeballs slightly slanted at the corners. The details were so precise that each blood vessel was shaded in the appropriate manner. The drawing was so lifelike that I found myself unable to tear my own eyes away.
Why would Sarah draw such a disturbing picture? Small flowers, stars and trees were the only drawings in the journal up until this point. Why the sudden change? I peeled my gaze from the unsettling eyes and read the tiny writing above the picture.
According to the journal, Sarah had a terrible dream the night before she drew the picture. In her nightmare, there was only total blackness. An absolute darkness. Except for a pair of red eyes that followed her every move. She had been unable to wake herself from the dream. Unable to re-enter the conscious world.
Well, that was disturbing.
Sarah’s nightmare reminded me too much of my own dream about the red-eyed ravens. I forced myself to look away from the drawing. I scanned the entries on the opposite page.