The winter had been mild, much milder than the West Virginia winters Karen was used to. There had been a little ice, a few snow flurries that didn’t accumulate, but no real winter in the strictest sense. She did get a kick out of the way people in South Carolina bundled up when it was only forty-five degrees out; they’d run to the store to stock up on milk and bread at the mere mention of snow, as if they feared they’d be trapped in their homes for weeks with no way to get provisions.
Now spring was knocking at the door, making its presence known with budding flowers and birdsong. A time of renewal, of rebirth…normally it was Karen’s favorite season, but this year it filled her with a mixture of hope and dread that left her slightly nauseated.
The second week of March, she was walking along the Swamp Rabbit Trail toward Traveler’s Rest, Bobby tagging along beside her. They had taken to having daily walks. Because the warm weather was bringing out joggers, power walkers, and bicyclers by the droves, they didn’t get to talk much during these walks, but that was okay. It was enough just to be with him. It made her feel better about…well, about everything really.
Halfway to Traveler’s Rest, Karen veered off the trail, Bobby following. They took a small paved path into a recently built physical fitness park. Instead of the usual equipment one might expect, this one contained work-out equipment, metal contraptions like torture devices, that would use your own weight to help you work your arms and legs.
The park was usually deserted. As it was today. Karen sat on a bench at the far end of the park, Bobby settling next to her.
“So,” she said, “are you getting nervous?”
Bobby laughed and said, “Oh yeah. Big time. Although I’m not sure if I’m more nervous that the spell won’t work…or that it will.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I don’t know, it’s weird. I’ve been stuck in this limbo state for so long, the very idea of being in a flesh and blood body again terrifies me. I mean, maybe I had my time and should just gracefully bow out.”
“Bobby, you were only nineteen when you died. You barely got started.”
“Plenty of people die younger than I was. Why should I get a second chance when they don’t? Some people die young, some people live to a ripe old age. It might not be fair, but it’s the natural way of things.”
“There’s nothing natural about getting run down by a car.”
Bobby opened his mouth but closed it without saying anything.
“Look, I know you’re nervous,” Karen said. “I’m nervous, your mother is nervous. But I believe this is going to work. In just over a week’s time, I’m going to take you out to dinner and we’re going to walk through downtown hand in hand. You want that, don’t you?”
“You know I do. It’s just….”
Bobby trailed off as if he’d lost his train of thought, but his eyes widened as he stared over Karen’s shoulder. Karen felt a chill run down her back like a stream of water. Something told her she didn’t want to turn around and see what had captured Bobby’s attention, but she did so anyway.
She was totally unprepared for who she saw standing at the entrance to the park.
“Jacoby,” she said, jumping to her feet. It was him, right down to his unkempt beard, but he seemed…insubstantial. Faded, like an old photograph. In fact, while she stared at him, he seemed to flicker.
“I don’t think I have long,” he said, his voice sounding tinny and faraway.
“What are you doing here?” Karen said, stepping closer to the thought form, who at this point seemed more thought than form. “I bound the powers of everyone in the coven. How did they conjure you?”
“They didn’t, I conjured myself.”
Karen glanced at Bobby, but he shrugged and said, “I’ve never heard of a thought form conjuring itself.”
“I don’t know how I’m doing it,” Jacoby said, his voice fading in and out like a radio with the speaker going bad. “Maybe because the coven has used me so many times I’ve developed more of a consciousness than is typical for a thought form. I just know that I have been very worried about you. I’ve tried several times over the past couple of weeks to manifest to you but I couldn’t draw enough energy. And I don’t know how long I’m going to last now, I’m burning out quickly, but there is something I need to tell you.”
“Jacoby, I know you mean well, but I’ve made up my mind, I’m going to do the spell.”
“This isn’t about the spell. Not directly. There’s something I think Bobby has a right to know.”
“Me?” Bobby said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. “What could you possibly have to tell me?”
“Simply this. The reason you don’t see any other spirits is because spirits don’t typically stick around on this plane. Contrary to what those paranormal TV shows would have you believe, the world is not full of ghosts. There is an order to things, and once this life is over, you move on to the next stage.”
“And what is that?” Bobby asked.
“I don’t know. No one who hasn’t gone there knows, and no one who goes there comes back. I just know you should have moved on years ago, but you are stuck. Your mother has trapped you here.”
“What?” Karen and Bobby said simultaneously.
“The reason you’re stuck here as a ghost is that your mother performed a spell to keep you from moving on, to keep you bound to her. I don’t know all the specifics of the spell, but I heard the coven say that it involved her keeping a piece of you.”
“His tonsils,” Karen said in a whisper.
“You’re saying my mother has intentionally kept me from moving on,” Bobby said, but he didn’t sound incredulous.
Jacoby faded, becoming transparent, and Karen thought he was going to disappear altogether, but he seemed to regain himself. “She can’t let you go, Bobby. Even though she is preventing you from taking a journey that is rightfully yours. The only way you can be free is to destroy the piece of you she possesses.”
Then Jacoby turned his translucent eyes on Karen. “You know, you made me feel almost human. You made me feel…more deeply than I ever had before. I could almost believe I was a real person when I was with you. I’m going to miss you.”
Jacoby reached out and placed his fingers on Karen’s cheek. They weren’t solid, they weren’t flesh, but she could still feel them, a minute pressure on her skin. Phantom fingers. She reached out to touch his face, but he was gone. Suddenly and completely, not even a Cheshire-cat grin lingering after. She felt his touch on her cheek for a moment more, then it too faded.
“Did that really just happen?” she said to herself, then turned toward Bobby. He was frozen in place, his expression unreadable. “Bobby, are you—”
“Did you hear what he said?”
“Yes, I heard it. Do you believe it?”
“I don’t want to, I want to think it’s just a trick…but it makes too much sense. She couldn’t let me go, so she kept me here. She kept me here so I couldn’t move on, all these years, until she could find a way to shove me into another body. It’s exactly the kind of thing she would do.”
Karen opened her mouth but wasn’t sure what she would say. Truth was that it did seem exactly the kind of thing Penelope would do. “Even if what Jacoby said is true, it’s also understandable. She just didn’t want to lose her son.”
“She did what she always does. Lies, manipulates. She’ll get what she wants, no matter what she has to do to get it, who she has to hurt.”
“Bobby, calm down. Let’s talk about—”
“You don’t know, Karen, you don’t know the things she has done to make this happen. And I kept her secrets, which makes me complicit. Oh God, how did I ever let it get this far?”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
Bobby stared at her with such intensity that it frightened her. He made several attempts to speak before finally getting the words out. “Derek…he didn’t attack you.”
“What?”
“I mean, he did…but he didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Bobby, you’re not making sense.”
“It was my mother. She did some kitchen magick on him.”
“Kitchen magick?”
“Yes, it’s when you make up a potion and mix it in with food, that you then feed to someone. In this case she baked up a batch of cookies and left them for him. Once he ate the cookies, she had him. He was hers—he’d do anything she asked.”
“That night…at the graveyard….”
“Yes, I led you there, and my mother sent Derek to attack you.”
Karen’s legs suddenly felt weak, and she stumbled to the bench and dropped down. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe. “Why would she do that?”
“She wanted to put you in a situation where you would be upset and afraid so that you would tap into your power, realize a potential that you didn’t even realize you possessed. She thought it was the fastest way to get you to where she needed you to be so she could use your power.”
Karen felt lightheaded, and she wondered idly if she were about to pass out. Her emotions swirled like a cyclone. The day seemed to grow dim, as if a cloud had passed over the sun though the sky was clear and blue. She finally looked at Bobby. “You were in on this. I trusted you, and you helped set me up.”
“She promised you wouldn’t get hurt, but you’re right. I lied to you. I let my mother talk me into a truly horrible thing. I wouldn’t blame you if you never forgave me. You shouldn’t. But this has to end. My mother has to be stopped.”
Before Karen could say anything else, Bobby was gone. At first Karen didn’t move, too stunned to process what she’d just learned. Her attack had been orchestrated by Penelope herself, with Bobby as her accomplice. The past several months of her life were nothing but a series of deceptions and masquerades.
As the shock wore off, anger took its place, filling Karen. She assumed Bobby had gone to confront his mother, and Karen was going to do the same. Leaving the park, she started down the trail toward campus at a brisk walk that soon turned into a sprint.
* * *
It took Karen almost forty-five minutes to drive to Penelope’s house. If her life were a movie, she would have sped at breakneck speeds, weaving in and out of traffic, tearing through red lights, going the wrong way down one-way streets, angling onto sidewalks to avoid stalled traffic, and sending pedestrians leaping out of the way. But life wasn’t like a movie, and Karen had to sit through red lights, wait patiently through stalled traffic. She tried calling Penelope a couple of times but got no answer.
The librarian’s car was in the driveway when Karen pulled up in front of the house. Now that she was here, she was having second thoughts. She was still angry, that was for damn sure, but she dreaded a confrontation. Her feelings were...complicated. She knew that Penelope was not her friend, and she did not want to help her in any way....
But that meant not helping Bobby, not being able to finally kiss him and feel his arms around her.
Then again, with what Bobby had learned from Jacoby, he probably was no longer concerned with being made flesh again. More than likely, he would want Karen to keep her promise and help his spirit move on. And now she knew how to do it.
But did she want to? He had betrayed her, had led her into a trap, had kept things from her...yet when she thought of how much pain he’d suffered at the park, she felt pain of her own.
Her feelings were complicated.
But first things first: she had to talk with Penelope. Getting out of the car, she hurried down the walk and began pushing the doorbell. She heard a chime inside but no footsteps approaching. Karen pounded on the door for good measure, but still no one answered. Penelope could have been around back in the circle, but in that case she would have heard Karen’s car pulling up.
Grasping the doorknob, she turned it…and the door swung open. Karen hesitated, feeling that she might be walking into another trap. But if she was, she’d be ready. She was not powerless, not by a long shot, and no one knew that better than Penelope.
The living room was lit only by a fire burning low in the fireplace. Stepping inside, Karen called the librarian’s name. When there was still no answer, she started toward the hall.
Bobby suddenly materialized in front of her. She was so startled that at first his words made no sense to her. By the time he said—“Behind you!”—sank in, it was too late.
She started to turn toward the door, which was now swinging shut, but something heavy collided with the side of her head and the world went black.