Thankfully, Dad was a deep sleeper. And the rain and thunder and wind had certainly helped. Still, I had no idea how he hadn’t heard the bed rattling, or the books flying off their shelves, or my bedroom window exploding. But he hadn’t.
At least I didn’t have to go to school today. Dad had bought my story that a branch had come crashing through my window in the storm and that I’d slept terribly through the thunder.
I’d already put all the books back on the shelves by the time Dad appeared to inspect the damage. He’d called in late to work and taped heavy-duty trash bags over the broken window. I didn’t care so long as the bugs and rain and that evil ghost didn’t get in. But Dad was on a mission to get the window fixed and left the house with his cell phone glued to his ear.
“My son won’t be able to sleep in there without a window . . . Yes, this afternoon should work—” The front door banged closed and I watched Dad climb into the minivan he’d purchased after the accident. “A five-star safety rating and plenty of room to tote clients and kids,” he’d said. Never mind that I had no intention of playing ghostball or being toted around ever again.
I grabbed my backpack, an apple for breakfast, and left the house. I needed answers. And I headed straight for the one place I knew I could find them.
The sign for Aunt Elena’s office flapped back and forth in the early autumn breeze. The Closed sign hung crooked in the window. I tried the handle anyway. Locked. I rapped on the glass door, hoping Aunt Elena was there. I didn’t want to discuss this at her house in front of Hannah or Aunt Trudy.
“Alex?” A rustle of skirts and jingle of keys fluttered up behind me. “Why aren’t you in school? It’s nearly ten o’clock.”
“Dad knows I’m not in school,” I said, wondering why I felt the need to explain myself, but glad she was here. I thought my aunt was a bit crazy. Dad had always called her “eccentric.” Maybe she was, but she was also smart. A true PI.
She stepped past me and unlocked the front door, eyeing my bandaged wrist. “Never mind school. Come in and tell me what happened.”
After flipping on an electric, sigil-covered kettle and preparing two cups of chamomile tea, Elena sat me down and stared. “Talk.”
So I did. I told her about having trouble falling asleep and the storm and the scratching noise. “Then something tossed me back on the bed and it felt like all of the air was being squeezed out of my lungs.”
Aunt Elena didn’t say a word while I spoke, but her brows drew together. “Well,” she finally said. “It sounds like you’ve attracted a malevolent spirit.”
“You mean like the ones the federal psychics come in to take care of?” A lump like a slug slid down my throat, cold and wet.
“I’m not sure.” Aunt Elena stood up and skimmed her fingers over the titles on her bookshelf. “Start with this.” She thrust a book into my hands: How to Clear Your Home of Ghosts and Spirits.
Great. “Why do I have to do it? Why not Frank?”
“Frank? Frank had an issue with his last apprentice.” Aunt Elena pressed her lips together like she wanted to say more, but wouldn’t. “Besides, like Frank said, you have to do it because you are psychic and because the spirit followed you home.”
“Isn’t there anyone else?” I groaned.
“The last I heard you were totally against telling any adult, except me and Frank, about your gift. Especially not your dad. Or, you could file a claim with the feds and wait six to twelve months for OPI to respond.”
“Six months to a year?” I knew they were slow, but there’s no way I could live with a murderous spirit hunting me down every night for a year.
“It’s their backlog that keeps PIs like me in business.” Her eyes gleamed. “And with your gift, Alex, you can do wonderful things.”
A gift? Being psychic wasn’t a gift. It was a curse. Ugh. Maybe Aunt Elena wanted me to be psychic because it would be good for business. Her business. But it wasn’t good for me. I pulled away from her, wondering how much she really cared about me.
She must have noticed my expression, because she immediately softened. “I know it’s hard, Alex. But you can do it. I believe in you.” She tapped her fingers together for a moment. “Did you bring the key?”
I scratched a tickle at the base of my skull. “I—I can’t find it.”
“And you’ve looked everywhere?”
“Yeah.” My voice cracked. “It’s not where I put it. And it’s not under my bed. Even Mrs. Wilson looked. It’s gone.”
Aunt Elena went to a wooden cabinet and removed a large bag of salt followed by another bottle of holy water and set them on the table in front of me. “Until you’re ready to tell your father, I’ll help you as much as I can.”
“Um, that will be never.”
She frowned at me like a kid who’d been caught stealing candy from the cupboard before Halloween, but I wasn’t going to budge. “You may not have a choice, Alex. Now, take these with you. Spread the salt around the edges of your room and house. Don’t forget the windows. Make sure the salt lines aren’t broken. This should help.” She handed me another bottle of holy water. “And keep this with you—just in case.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to arrange for us to pay a visit to Mr. Graves.”
Mr. Graves? I didn’t like the sound of that.
The window repairman had fixed my window, and I checked my Spellguard. It was already three o’clock, which meant I had to hurry and salt the house before Jason or Hannah arrived to find out why I wasn’t at school.
I glanced at the book Aunt Elena had given me, then back at Dad’s computer—the only computer in the house. The government permitted one computer per household. One television. One of anything that was powered with electricity. Electric machines, especially computers, had caused a lot of trouble in the early days after they were invented. But scientists had argued that scientific and technological progress should not be stopped due to the spirit attacks and hauntings we’d encountered since the Great Unleashing of 1900. And they had worked right along with some of the best government psychics to stop spirit activity in their machines. Apparently, entities like to travel through electric lines and computers. So, the OPI created a Paranormal Cybersecurity Squad to stop computer-related hauntings. And all electronics were sold with warded wires and nearly invisible Solomon’s Seals etched into the screens.
Still, I triple-checked the seals before switching it on; then I did what most normal twelve-year-olds do when using a computer—an Internet search.
I typed malevolent spirit, and prayed one wouldn’t come shooting out at me through the screen.
A definition popped up. Good. Maybe I was on the right track. I read the screen.
A malevolent spirit is the soul of a human being who had ill intentions while living. Since spirits retain the same personalities they had while alive, these spirits can be angry, troublesome, and plain nasty.
That sounded like my ghost all right. If he really did kill the woman in the basement, then he might try to do the same thing to me.
Next I clicked on a link for town psychics and skimmed a list of ways to rid a place of dark and evil spirits.
- Holy water
- Sea salt
- Candles
- Incense (especially sage)
- Prayer
- Feng shui
Those were listed as the top six; I skipped the legendary uses of garlic and painting the door red. Those were definitely things Dad would notice. I’d better use the holy water and salt like I’d learned in elementary warding.
I waited until after the repairman had replaced the window to haul Elena’s bag of salt out from where I’d hidden it under my bed. I grabbed a clean bucket and a Pyrex measuring cup from the kitchen, when someone pounded on my back door.
Startled, I dropped the bucket, shoved it under the kitchen table, and went to the door.
“Who is it?” I called through the haze of window sheers that obscured my view.
“It’s me. Jason. Hurry up and let me in.”
I unlocked the door with a relieved sigh. “I’m glad it’s you.”
Jason eyed the Pyrex measuring cup on the counter and sniffed. “Where were you today and what are you up to?”
Quickly, I told him about the attack last night and how Aunt Elena had instructed me to salt the house. Without question, Jason helped me load the bucket and Pyrex measuring cup with salt and we began spreading.
We put a thick layer around the periphery of the house’s interior, carefully lining every doorway and window, and sprinkling it around the perimeter of each room.
My room was last, and I insisted we put an extra-large amount there, adding even more around my bed. That should do it. My bed was like an island surrounded by a sea of salt.
Jason surveyed our work. “I don’t know, X. There is a lot of salt here. Your dad might notice.”
“Nah. As long as he doesn’t put his reading glasses on and look at the floor, I think I’ll be okay.” I hoped.
“What you need,” said Jason, who stood looking around my room, “is a trap.”
“A trap?”
Jason went over to my dresser and started digging through my drawers where I’d always kept my ghostball uniforms and supplies. “Sure. You brought the ghost home with a lure—the key.”
“Which is missing,” I snarled, still annoyed I couldn’t find it.
Jason picked up an old ghostball, letting my attitude roll off him. “That doesn’t matter. Even if it’s gone, he’s still coming back. So, you’re the lure now. And if there’s one thing I know about hunting, you don’t want to use a lure without a trap.” He tossed the ghostball to me with a grin.
I looked at the ghostball in my hands, then at Jason. “I think I know what you have in mind.”
Together we dove for the ghostball gear I’d boxed up after the accident.
I ripped open a box and hefted out a new, unprimed ghostball still in its package.
“Cool.” Jason took the ball from me. “I’m glad you have one that’s not primed.”
Suddenly I didn’t feel so sure. Usually when you got a new ghostball, it came with sigils, but no entity. The State Ghostball referees were the ones to put in a poltergeist and make sure the sigils were sound and the ball worked properly. “It’s empty, but how are we going to prime it to catch a ghost?”
Jason pulled a book entitled Ghost Traps and Tricks out of his backpack. “You’re not the only one doing some reading. Here.” He handed me the book. “You’ve always been better with wards and sigils, so you can do it. I’ll hold the ball.”
I flipped open the book to an earmarked page: lure and trapping sigils. Right. I read them over and picked out the ones I thought would work best for pulling a ghost into the ball, then I grabbed a small can of black iron paint I hadn’t used since fifth grade when I’d had my sigil class and got to work on the ball.
By the time we were done, Dad was home. And I prayed tonight wouldn’t be as bad as the last.
Mrs. Wilson was still scarce. Maybe it was the salt. Maybe it was her fear. Either way, I couldn’t blame her. I carefully checked the line of salt around my room and the trap Jason and I had prepared. Nothing had been disturbed. Good. Next I took the new bottle of holy water from my jeans pocket and tucked it into the waistband of my boxer shorts. Then I climbed into bed, ready for battle. And, after what felt like hours, I drifted into a restless sleep.
My eyes shot open, my head tilted uncomfortably sideways. I was staring straight at the ghostly, glowing digits of my alarm clock: 2:00 a.m.
A huge thud banged against my bedroom window followed by the rattle, rattle, rattle of the glass in its panes.
I sat up, hugging my knees to my chest.
Thud. Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
I didn’t feel cold. Not even the chill I got when Mrs. Wilson was around.
Thud. Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
I flipped on my bedside lamp, and looked over to my partly drawn drapes.
Thud. Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
The shape of a fist beat against the window, then shook it. Someone was trying to get in.
I tried to swallow the vise-like grip that now clenched my throat, and climbed out of bed. I checked the salt line. It was unbroken. The ghostball sat still, its sigils not glowing. I wouldn’t need it unless the spirit got inside.
The windowpane shook with so much force the glass bulged. I took another step closer. Maybe if the thing outside couldn’t see inside it would go away.
I reached out and grabbed the curtains to pull them tight, and stopped dead. There. Staring straight at me through my locked second-story bedroom window was the ghost. The man was mostly translucent, but his eyes flashed red, then faded to a putrid brown, and his lips curled with hatred.
Heart thundering, I forced the curtains shut.
The man howled, more like some wild creature than a human, and the window exploded inward, showering me with glass.
Pain seared my face and arms as the glass made tiny slices in my skin. I leapt into bed, pulled the duvet snuggly over my head to protect myself from any more flying glass, grabbed the holy water, and prayed the salt lines held.
The screaming went on and on. More windows rattled. But he couldn’t come inside. The howl lasted for what seemed like hours before it finally died away—the thumping and rattling with it.
Dad trembled with fury as he swept up a pile of shredded glass. “How do you explain this? Another branch?”
I looked anywhere but at Dad. What could I say when he didn’t want to hear the truth?
“There wasn’t a storm last night, Alex.” He swept up another pile. “You’re doing this, aren’t you?” Dad stood up and dumped the final shards of glass into the extra-thick yard bag he’d brought up from the garage. “I’m spending too much time at work and you’re trying to get my attention. I’m calling Dr. Midgley.”
Dad bent down to pick up a large sliver he’d missed, then stopped. He reached for something under the bed.
My stomach fell into my toes and I fought the urge to bolt. Please let it only be the ghostball.
Dad got on his hands and knees, reached under the bed, and lifted up the bottle of holy water that must’ve slipped out of my underwear. “What. Is. This?” He read the bottle and a strange, totally freaked-out look took over his face. “Holy water. Where did you get holy water?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
Dad tossed it on the bed. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. This has got to stop.”
“You’re right, Dad. It does have to stop. And I’m trying to—”
Dad held up his hand. “Just go to school, Alex. We’ll discuss it later. You’re late.”
As soon as Dad left the room, I grabbed the holy water and shoved it in my pocket. Then I grabbed my extra-large backpack, shoved my ghostball trap inside, and headed for school.