Beneath An Ivy Moon (Legacy Of Magick Series, Book 4) (6 page)

I yanked myself out of my inner musings and glanced down at my shirt. It was black (of course), and today’s slogan was,
I’m only here to recruit girls for my coven.
Sure, it made some people walk a wide berth around me. Not to mention Aunt Faye would have launched into a lecture about me needing to be more subtle if she would see me wearing such a thing. But it made
me
smile. Understated it was not, but at least it showed that I had a sense of humor.

I knew that eventually the hoopla over the discovery at the construction site would fade. I only had to wait it out. In the meantime I would wear whatever I damn well pleased, and keep to my normal schedule. I’d done my very best
not
to cackle at the fellow residents of the dorm for the past few weeks. That had to count for something, right?

The good news was the psychic implosion I’d felt when they’d discovered the remains hadn’t occurred again, and the negativity I’d originally discerned on campus had dissipated. For the time being, Bran was quietly doing research on the history of that particular area of the campus. Autumn had a line on any future information on the archeological dig from Dr. Meyer, Cypress and I were getting into the routine of a new semester, and for some reason... I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

My unease had been building over the past few hours, and out of habit, I reached for the silver pentagram pendant. After the implosion I hadn’t taken the necklace off. While the pendant seemed to be behaving itself and acting like an average piece of jewelry lately, I still didn’t want to switch it out with another necklace. Not even for another magickal symbol.

The pentacle had protected me. It made me feel like my mother was watching over me, and I was leaving it on. Rolling my shoulders against the tension that had gathered there, I tugged my earphones off and stretched in my desk chair. It was almost midnight, I’d been studying for hours.

“I’m calling it,” I said to Cypress.

Cypress rubbed her eyes. “Yeah, that’s enough for me.” She closed her notebook and began to put away her books.

I let myself quietly out of our room, heading for the restroom across the hall, when one of our new residents walked smack into me. “Hey,” I laughed, reaching out. “Watch where you are going there, girlfriend.”

She never acknowledged me in any way. The girl walked slowly on in her pink pajama shorts and sleep shirt, and right past her room.

“Was that Jessica?” Cypress asked, coming to the door.

“Jessica?” I called softly.

Cypress stepped around me. “I think she’s sleepwalking.”

My curiosity got the better of me. I walked quickly to her side and gently reached out to touch her shoulder. “Jessica?”

She stared at me with her eyes open and I felt a chill roll down my back. My mind raced as I considered what I should do.
You weren’t supposed to startle a sleepwalker awake, were you?

Cypress stepped forward. “Your room is back this way.” Cypress gave her a gentle nudge back in the right direction.

“Okay,” Jessica said, wandering back the way she had come.

We waited until she went to her room and Jessica stopped still in front of her door. I saw the door was open a crack so I pushed it the rest of the way open, and Jessica went in.

I closed the door and we started back. We’d almost made it to our room when the lights in the hallway all began to buzz and flicker.

“What the hell?” I glanced over at Cypress.

Cypress shivered. “Damn, it’s cold all of the sudden.”

I heard a door open and once again Jessica appeared in the hallway. She walked right past us and towards the top landing of the stairs.

“Hey!” I called, rushing after her. I grabbed her arm and yanked her away from the edge of the steps, hard. Hard enough to have woken her.

Jessica turned blank eyes towards me. “Do you hear her?”

“Hear who?” I asked as Cypress joined us.

“She’s calling.” Jessica stood staring off into space. She tried to tug her arm away from me as if she would go down the stairs.

“Who’s calling you?” Cypress asked.

“The Headmistress.” Jessica continued to try and pull away from me.

I tried to ease Jessica away from the top landing. “There’s no one talking. You’re dreaming.” I glanced at Cypress. “Cy, give me a hand.”

Cypress reached out and helped me to pull the struggling girl farther away from the stairs. Above us the security light sizzled and popped.

“I have to go to her!” Jessica strained against us.

“Jessica, stop fighting me.” I shook the girl’s arm. “Wake up!”

Jessica jolted awake blinking furiously. She frowned at Cypress and me, and as we watched, her eyes refocused. “What’s going on?” she said.

“You were sleepwalking,” Cypress told her.

“I was?”

Cypress put her arm around the girl. “Come on. It’s okay. Let me walk you back to your room.”

I trailed behind them, and saw that the hall lights were now burning true. Cypress escorted Jessica back to her room, and I ducked into the restroom across the hall. By the time I came back Cypress stood waiting, hip shot and arms crossed.

I shut our door behind me and leaned against it. “What the hell happened out there?”

Cypress tilted her head. “I don’t know, but the lights stopped snapping and blinking when Jessica woke up.”

“Yeah, I noticed that too. The cold, the blinking lights. Cypress, that’s like ghost type stuff.”

Cypress blew out a breath. “We’re talking true paranormal activity.”

“She said the
Headmistress
called her.” I scratched my chin. “Would that be our resident ghost?”

“The stories of Victoria Crowly’s ghost have always been benevolent,” Cypress said.

“As far as we know.” I pointed out.

“We’ve lived here in the Hall for two years, and never experienced anything like this before.” Cypress shrugged.

“Which makes me wonder, why now?”

Cypress yawned. “I could do some research. Ask some of the ladies from the historical society, and see what they know about the history of the campus haunting.”

I rubbed my hands over my face. “I have to work at the shop tomorrow. Between customers I can do an internet search, see if I can find anything.”

“Sounds good,” Cypress said.

Satisfied with our plans we both went to bed. I climbed up the end of the bunk bed, flopped face down, and was asleep in moments.

CHAPTER FOUR

During the school year I worked at
Enchantments
on Friday and Saturday afternoons and every other Sunday. Great Aunt Faye now ran the business side of things- mostly from home. The old girl seemed to enjoy the ordering and purchasing of items for the shop, and she liked to come in on Tuesdays and an occasional Saturday to help run the counter. However, she was
conveniently
never around when it was time to unload the shipments, stock the shelves, or to do any cleaning.

Those tasks fell to our full time employee, Teri, and also to Autumn and me. Cypress had also picked up a part-time job at our shop. So the family’s business ran smoothly. Teri had decided to re-arrange the layout of the store earlier this summer, and the four of us had given the place a complete overhaul.

The day after the creepy sleepwalking/flickering lights incident at the dorm, I was manning the front counter. I’d been using the store’s computer and had been unsuccessfully searching the internet for stories about the haunting at Crowly Hall. Most of it was simply urban legend stuff, with no proof to back it up. I printed out a few short articles, but there wasn’t much of anything to most of the stories. They were mostly anecdotes. I did read several interesting online articles about paranormal investigation. I printed out the best one and added it to my stack.

I wondered at the lack of customers in the shop. Even though there was plenty of foot traffic on Main Street, it was surprisingly quiet. I decided to freshen up the front window display, but after that, I was still bored. So I fussed with the bowls of tumbled stones on a table, and caught my reflection in the mirror on the brick wall.

“I’m digging the cloudy blue.” I decided, tugging at my shirt.
The Moon
tarot card was emblazoned on the front, and the loose top draped off one shoulder. It framed the tattoo on the back of my shoulder, nicely. The tattoo had three small stars around a slim waxing crescent moon, and was a stylized version of the Bishop family magickal crest. To go with the lunar theme I’d added dangly silver crescent moons earrings, and my silver pentagram pendant glistened against the gray-blue of the shirt. Comfy, distressed denim shorts peeked out from beneath the slouchy top.

I’d made a conscious effort to start adding more color to my wardrobe lately. I was still getting used to it. Truth was I wore a lot of black, and rarely any other color. I supposed some folks might find the lunar ensemble a bit too much— but for me— it was downright subtle.

The ticking of the old clock sounded unusually loud this afternoon. I wandered over to the front windows again, and frowned.
Why was it so quiet in the shop? We were usually busy on Fridays.
I moved away from the window and considered working a little prosperity magick to drum up some business.

I was starting to organize the supplies for my spell on the front counter, when Cypress dropped by.

“Hey, do you have a minute?” Cypress asked, walking in. She wore a short, swingy bright coral dress. A heavy, silver fleur-de-lis pendant hung around her neck.

“Yeah, it’s been really slow this afternoon.” I moved out from around the counter. “You look nice. Big date tonight?” I wiggled my eyebrows at her.

Cypress smiled. “Jake’s going to pick me up at Marie’s in a little while.”

“Marie wants to meet him?” I grinned imagining how Cypress’ aunt would probably scare the crap out of Cypress’ newest boyfriend. “Good luck with that.”

Cypress rolled her eyes and hitched her large, colorful bag higher on her shoulder. “Yeah anyway, I have some information about our ghost in residence.”

“I did a little digging myself today. Read up on paranormal investigating. Found lots of urban legend stuff, but maybe a few leads.” I gestured to the comfy reading chairs that had been set up in front of the used book section of the store. I plopped down in one of the chairs. “Lay it on me,” I told her.

Cypress sat in the other chair, smoothing her skirt over her knees. “I went to the museum on campus and had a chat with Dr. Meyer.”

“He’s such a cool old guy,” I smiled. “I bet he talked your ear off about the history of the campus ghost.

“He did have a lot of information. Did you know he wrote a book about it?” Cypress reached into her purse and pulled out a slim paperback.

She handed me the book and I quickly thumbed through it. “This is great. I’ll use it with the stuff I pulled from the net.”

“What did you find online about the ghost?” Cypress asked.

“Well there’s a bunch of urban legend type of things. But there are a few older articles about the ghost of Victoria Crowly. In the 1970s some girl was actually interviewed in the Gazette about her experience.”

“What happened to her?” Cypress asked.

“She said the ghost saved her. Claimed that she kept her from falling down the stairs— as in from the third floor. Apparently there were about a half dozens girls who saw the whole thing.”

“Oh wait, he did mention that story to me.” Cypress took the paperback again, and thumbed through it. “Yeah, it’s right here.” Cypress pulled a receipt out of her purse to mark the page for me.

“So the ghost has been helpful to the residents in the past?”

“I flat out asked Dr. Meyer if there were any claims of the ghost luring people out of their rooms.” Cypress shrugged. “He seemed pretty surprised by my question.”

“I found accounts, or stories of people spotting her in the Hall,” I said. “A few students have also claimed to see a woman in white around Victoria Crowly’s grave on campus over the years.”

“Dr. Meyer told me she was a
benign
presence,” Cypress said, handing me back the book.

“Yeah, most of the stories handed down in the Hall are of her being protective of the residents. Almost motherly.” I tucked my hair behind my ear as I thought it over. “But I figured that was to keep the residents of the Hall from being afraid.”

“Besides an occasional sound in the attic... we’ve never had any problems with her,” Cypress said.

“Well, where the hell was the old girl last night?” I joked. “We could’ve used a hand with Jessica.”

“Before I go, there’s something else I wanted to tell you,” Cypress said. “There was a serious accident at the excavation site today.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Who was it?” I asked, thinking of all the people I had seen working over there for the past few weeks.

“I don’t know. It happened after Dr. Meyer gave me the book. He rushed out and went straight over. People were pretty upset. When I left the museum, the ambulance was already there.” Cypress stared down at her hands and fidgeted.

Her body language made me frown. “What’s got you worried Cy?”

“Things feel weird to me,” Cypress said, meeting my eyes. “Ever since they found those remains. Energetically, things feel off.”

“What happened last night creeped us both out.” I set the paperback down. “I’ll admit, I keep seeing Jessica’s blank face.” I blew out a breath and said what I was thinking. “I have a feeling that if I wouldn’t have stopped her last night... Jessica would’ve pitched herself down the stairs.”

Cypress shuddered. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

I reached out and clasped Cypress’ hand. “We need to keep an eye on things at the Hall.”

“Agreed.” Cypress nodded. “Do you want to cast a protection spell on our dorm? We could do it together.”

I pursed my lips as I considered. “Well, that’s actually manipulation. Unless we get every single resident’s permission to cast a spell for them.”

Cypress snorted out a laugh. “Not too likely.”

“Why don’t we batten down the hatches in our room for starters,” I said. “Then we’ll keep watch and see how it goes?”