I shoved open the door to Aunt Elena’s office with an annoyed kick, making the entry chimes tinkle and my hip scar scream. With my scratched arm and clawed neck, I’d almost forgotten about my gimpy leg—almost.
Hannah and Jason stood looking over an advanced warding book. I could barely believe it; Jason was here with her? He was my best friend, not Hannah’s. Why was he with her? Why hadn’t he waited for me after school? His betrayal stabbed me in the gut, and I tried to ignore the fact that I’d had to leave school early with Dad. Maybe Jason had tried to find me after school. Maybe they both had, but I wasn’t there. I was at home pleading with Dad to let me go to Hannah’s so I could catch up on any homework I’d missed. More like ghost work.
As soon as Jason and Hannah saw me they bolted straight for me. “What happened at school today?” Hannah asked, breathless.
“Everyone said that you broke mirrors and terrorized Billy and David.” Jason snorted back a laugh. “I wish I’d have seen whatever you did to them. I overheard Tommy Lord say that David was crying in the school office.”
“I don’t give a flip about Billy and David. And they should be scared—” I glared, still angry that Jason hadn’t come to my house right after school, but had decided to hang out with Hannah instead.
Hannah’s mouth dropped into the shape of a large egg. “Alex, what happened to your neck?”
Aunt Elena appeared out of nowhere, which probably meant she’d been in the back storeroom and that would account for the dust in her hair. “Alex Lenard.” She spun me to face her and studied the marks on my neck with a frown. “Finger marks. Scratches. They’re usually not this strong,” she mumbled to herself. “Did you use the holy water?”
“Yep. And salt. He couldn’t get into the house last night, but he broke the windows again and my dad thinks I’m doing it. Then he attacked me at school and blew out the bathroom mirrors.” I sighed. “The principal’s confused, and my dad thinks I’m desperate for attention.”
“I’d talk to your father if I thought it would help.” Aunt Elena gave me a pitying look. “But it won’t.”
“Why does he hate psychics so much?” Hannah looked genuinely confused. “They’re helping with the Problem. It’s not like they’re hurting anyone. Even if it is their fault the ghosts came through in the first place.”
Elena sighed, running her fingers through the tangles in her wavy hair. “When your dad was ten, his best friend, Jeff, tested as psychic. Chris was so excited. His best friend was psychic. They stayed in touch. Jeff shared what he could about his new life and they saw each other on holidays. But then, when they were eleven, Jeff was killed by a malevolent spirit during a training exercise. Ever since then your father has hated ghosts. Hated psychics. Hated anything that has to do with the Problem. He hates what they did to Jeff and to the world.”
I could barely believe it. Dad had never told me. Everything made so much more sense now. No wonder Mom never talked to him about her work.
Aunt Elena grabbed her purse. “Come on, kids. We’re going to see Mr. Graves.”
Hannah gasped and I looked at Jason, wondering if he knew anything about Mr. Graves. But he shrugged.
“Who?” I didn’t like the sound of this.
“The cemetery caretaker. Harry Graves. We’re not on the best terms since your mother’s funeral, but he knows more about the comings and goings of spirits than nearly anyone else around here, including the town psychics.”
Hannah bounced up and down and up and down all the way along the sidewalk to the wrought-iron cemetery gate. Large wrought-iron sigils coiled around the gate and cemetery fencing. Framing the gates were two large flickering gas lamps. They were always filled and on. No electricity was allowed in cemeteries. There were protection sigils, as well as those designed to bind spirits so they wouldn’t leave the graveyard. And over the cemetery’s gated entry dangled a lone God’s eye of bright purple.
We stopped beneath the God’s eye. Aunt Elena whispered a prayer and ward of protection. I touched Mom’s Nazar Boncuğu for luck. And Hannah kept bouncing.
“Would you please stop that,” I snapped, annoyed at the thudding of her heels slapping against the concrete.
“I don’t like Mr. Graves. He’s creepy.” Hannah wrapped her jacket tightly around her.
“He’s not creepy. He’s old.” Aunt Elena led us through the gates, toward the small caretaker’s cottage.
Hannah snorted. “Older than dirt and not nearly as pretty.”
“Hannah,” Aunt Elena scolded. “He’s eighty years old.”
“Wow. That is old.” Jason’s eyebrows rose dramatically.
“I still say he’s creepy.” Hannah twirled her hair around her finger and popped the end in her mouth.
“Well, he does spend a lot of time outdoors,” Aunt Elena said. “Maybe that’s why he’s so wrinkly. He’s been taking care of the place for over fifty years.”
Aunt Elena knocked at the cottage door, which was inscribed with masses of complex sigils. The door swung open and a skeletally thin man with a weathered face appeared. It was the same man who’d beckoned to me from the cemetery on my walk that day. I shivered.
“Mr. Graves.” Aunt Elena went inside first with a small nod.
“Elena.” His voice creaked like an old door. “Who’ve you brought with you?” he asked, peering over his fingerprint-smudged spectacles.
Aunt Elena pulled Hannah forward and glared at her until she shook Mr. Graves’s outstretched hand. “You remember my niece, Hannah?”
“Of course.” A yellowing nail scraped Hannah’s hand and she recoiled, tucking herself behind me and Jason.
Jason immediately extended his hand. “Jason Anderson. Nice to meet you, sir.” His lips quivered into an I-can’t-believe-I’m-touching-him smile.
“And you are?” growled Mr. Graves, looking straight at me.
I swallowed the glob of slimy mucus that stuck in my throat. “Alex—Alex Lenard,” I croaked. Hannah was right: Mr. Graves was totally creepy.
“Ah.” Mr. Graves’s nearly opaque blue eyes glistened. “Yes. I was very sorry about your mother.” Spit sprayed from between his teeth, landing on my cheek and dripping onto my faded ghostball T-shirt. “The yard’s been quivering with excitement about you since she died.”
“The yard?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“The graveyard, boy. It tells me things. They tell me things.” He glanced at the scratches on my arms and neck, then made a tutting sound with his tongue. “Don’t need some town psychic or PI to tell me what’s going on with the dead,” he snorted, still peering at me. “Someone’s not happy with you. Not happy at all.”
“Right.” Elena stepped forward. “Which is why we’re here. We need your assistance, Mr. Graves.”
“Again?” His eyes pierced hers, but Aunt Elena didn’t back down, her gaze steady. Finally, Mr. Graves walked around his metal desk, sat in his beat-up office chair, and put his hands together like a steeple. “Well, then, why don’t you tell me what the spirits haven’t.”
And Elena did. She told him about Mom and the accident. About my ability. About the house we’d investigated and what I’d seen and heard. About the missing key. About attacks at home and school. I quietly thanked God for my aunt and let her do all the talking.
Mr. Graves leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and listened. When Aunt Elena finally finished he stayed that way. He was so still I could have sworn he’d died right there in his cracked leather chair.
Jason leaned close to me and whispered, “Do you think he’s dead?”
I shrugged and tried not to laugh, my annoyance at Jason forgotten. “I wondered the same thing.”
Aunt Elena gave me a scowl and Mr. Graves opened his eyes. “I’m not dead yet. I’m thinking.”
Mr. Graves rummaged around in his desk, pulled out a tarnished flask, and took a long swig. “I think I know who you’re dealing with . . . but the yard hasn’t been talking. Not about that. It was a long time ago. I was still a young man then, but I remember it clear as day.”
He looked from Aunt Elena to Hannah to Jason, and then he swung his chilly gaze on me. “I’ll bet you dollars to cobwebs that it’s Eleanor Wilkes you found in that basement wall. Neighbors said she wouldn’t up and leave. Not with her new grandbaby just arrived. And she and her daughter were close. Most folks said her husband did it. Harold Wilkes. Mean old coot.” Mr. Graves spat into a rusted coffee can near his feet that was filled with something black and goopy.
I shuddered. Mr. Graves wasn’t just creepy. He was gross.
“We’d never go there to trick-or-treat on account of Mr. Wilkes. All the kids in the neighborhood would skip that house. He handed out hot pennies one year—straight out of the oven. Burned all our fingers. And that was that. No more trick-or-treaters for the Wilkeses. Wasn’t long after that Mrs. Wilkes disappeared.”
“That’s awful,” Hannah stammered.
“That was him, Hannah, dear. Awful. It’s what he was. After Mrs. Wilkes disappeared,
Old Man Wilkes didn’t leave the house. Not much anyway. Never saw his daughter or his grandbaby. His daughter wouldn’t even visit ’im. I think she knew he killed her mother. But no one ever found the body. And when Mr. Wilkes was laid to rest over yonder, I never did catch a glimpse of him.” Mr. Graves spat another gooey glob into the can. “I supposed he became part of the Problem.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“When folks die I usually see ’em. If they’re not wanderin’ around all confused and lost, sometimes they come to their funerals. See who’s attending. Who’s not. Then they cross over peacefully. Not many stay here. But some do. Some don’t know they’re dead. Others are just too afraid of what they’ll find on the other side. It’s them that become part of the Problem.”
Was Mom wandering around the graveyard at night? Alone?
Mr. Graves turned his X-ray eyes on me. “I haven’t seen your mother, son.”
I was startled at the compassion in those old, glassy eyes and sense of comfort wrapped itself around me. “That’s good.” I wanted to cry, but pushed back tears.
“Haven’t seen her, nor have the others. They’d have told me if she were lingering.” Mr. Graves took a long drink from a silver flask he kept in his desk. “Too much tragedy in death. But more for those of us left living. Most spirits cross over. They go where they need to go. You’ll see your mother again. Just not here.”
I was relieved and crushed at the same time. I was glad Mom had crossed over. I hoped she was in the beautiful version of heaven that she believed in. But my heart broke that I’d have to go my entire life without ever seeing her again. At least now I knew she was somewhere safe. Somewhere good. Maybe that’s why I’d received this “gift” as Aunt Elena called it. Maybe I was supposed to help lost souls find their way to a better place.
Aunt Elena interrupted my thoughts, reminding me of the more pressing matter of putting an end to my visits from Mr. Wilkes. “The Wilkeses’ grandson, Gary Barrett, owns the house. He’s the one we’re investigating for.”
Mr. Graves coughed and spat another glob into his tin can. “Trying to sell the old Wilkes place, is he? Old Man Wilkes’ll never let it happen.”
“I believe he’s been trying to rent it out,” said Aunt Elena quietly. “But no one will stay.”
Mr. Graves leered at us. “And no wonder. A PI and a baby psychic trying to rid yourselves of that mean old spirit with salt and holy water.”
Aunt Elena stiffened. “Frank Martinez is helping me. And Mr. Barrett’s already got the house on OPI’s waiting list and the town psychics did nothing. So he called me.” She sounded indignant, but I wanted to hear what Mr. Graves had to say.
Mr. Graves looked straight at me again. “He’s been attacking you, and no one else?”
“Yes, sir. That’s right,” I mumbled. “Except he . . . he hurt or killed the old school janitor ghost, Mr. Thomas, when he tried to protect me.”
“Wilbur Thomas?” Mr. Graves’s voice quivered.
I nodded.
“Good man, Wilbur Thomas. Came up here years ago from Baton Rouge. I’m not surprised he’s still hangin’ around that school. He loved it as much as life. His spirit may have been injured. Maybe had some of the energy drained from it. But you can’t kill a ghost, son.” Mr. Graves sounded confident, but his foot thumped worriedly against the edge of his desk. “He may come back—eventually.” The old caretaker pulled out a chart of the cemetery and tapped his finger against one of the plot marks. “You’ve got to put Mrs. Wilkes to rest, boy, then we can take care of her murdering coot of a husband.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?” Jason asked before I could get the words out.
“The bones, boy. You’ve got ta bury the bones.”
Of course we did. Now all we had to do was explain to Mr. Wilkes’s estranged grandson that we didn’t have a simple haunting. That we had to destroy his century-old basement wall, find his murdered grandmother’s bones, bury them, and get the ghosts to cross over. All without OPI or a town psychic. And we’d have to do it before Dad dragged me back to the shrink on Monday. I only hoped Mr. Barrett wouldn’t mind having a renovation project to deal with in exchange for the ghosts.
Mr. Graves pointed a finger at me. “You bury her bones and you’ll stand a chance of sending Old Man Wilkes on his way, too. Until Mrs. Wilkes is at peace, there’s no way you’ll force him to cross over.”