Poltergeeks (3 page)

  The smell of horseradish seared my sinuses and brought a flood of tears to my eyes as soon as we walked through the front door. In the kitchen, Mom was hovering over a huge stock pot with a gas mask over her face, stirring a vile-smelling concoction with a wooden spoon. She's self-employed. If you Google "Calgary" and "Naturalists" you'll find Mom's web page, "Donna Richardson – Earth Healing – Herbology". There's a really bad picture of my mother's head photoshopped onto a cheesy sunset background that she uses for a web banner. She charges a hundred bucks an hour to concoct everything from healing balms to stress-reducing teas that her clients swear are better than anything you can buy at a Walmart Super Centre. The downside? That goat farm in our front yard can be seen from outer space and the neighbours are always complaining that our place is bringing down their property values.

  I plugged my nose and waved my backpack in the air to grab her attention. "Mom, whatever you're boiling in that pot is going to melt the paint on the walls," I complained. "When you're done, I need your help with something, okay?"

  She turned her head toward me. The gas mask made her look like a giant insect in an apron. "One minute," she said, her voice muffled. "This is almost done. I'll chat with you on the deck. Hello, Mr Guffman, you've got blood on your shirt."

  "I had a brief battle with a traumatized cat I was trying to rescue," he said, pulling on his shirt collar.

  "I hope you won," she said pointing her wooden spoon at the door. "You both might want to get out of the kitchen before you succumb to the stench, okay?"

  Marcus and I padded down the hall to the enormous French doors leading to our deck, and stepped outside again. The teddy bear inside my backpack was rolling around, giving the bag a life of its own. I hoped the spirit wasn't about to lose patience. The last thing the residents of Lake Sundance needed was a poltergeist wreaking havoc inside the home of a witch, because it's a bit like a magical armoury in our basement. Mom has enough spell-making material stored downstairs to level five city blocks.

  "Spirit…
God!
Just chill out okay?" I snapped. "We're going to figure this out in a minute so please stop whatever it is that you're doing in there."

  It must have heard me because the flopping about inside my backpack ceased. Marcus took a seat on our vinyl lounger, and the morning sun gave way to a wave of heat that told me it was going to be another scorcher of a Sunday.

  "So, you figure it's a poltergeist, eh?" Marcus said, eyeballing the backpack. "I'd have thought malevolent spirits were more interested in haunting vintage homes."

  "Why, Marcus," said my mother, as she stepped outside and onto the deck. "Whatever gave you the impression that poltergeists are exclusively malevolent?"

  She'd rolled her long red hair into a thick bun that was fixed to the top of her head with bobby pins. Her eyes narrowed as she gazed down at the backpack and I could tell from the slight edge in her voice that my discovery had thrown a wrench into her plans for the day.

  I spun around on my lawn chair and held out my bag for my mother's examination. "Sorry, Mom, we ran into this about forty minutes ago at Mrs Gilbert's house. It chucked the old biddy out the front door and launched Slippers the Siamese cat through the chimney."

  Mom gave me a surprised look. "That doesn't sound like your average poltergeist," she said grimly. "Do you know the spirit's name?"

  "No. Why do we need to know its name?" I asked.

  She grabbed the backpack and placed it on the patio table and stepped back a couple of feet. "Because if you were thinking of conducting an exorcism, aside from being grounded for the rest of your natural born life, your exorcism wouldn't have worked."

  Marcus sat up. "Why's that?" he asked. "It's a spirit. I mean, it's dead, right?"

  The backpack started rolling around on top of the patio table as Mom stretched out her hands to get a feel for the spirit's spiritual signature. Naturally this rubbed me the wrong way because she was clearly laying the dramatic gestures on just a little bit too thick; possibly because Marcus was watching and definitely to remind me that she was the sensei and I was still the lowly apprentice.

  "This is a minor spirit," she said, concentrating. "I don't feel any menace attached to it, so that's a good thing. The reason you need to know its name is because you can't impart your will to the exorcism spell without a name. It just won't work."

  Ugh. I should have known better. Names act like a conduit for magical energies. Without knowing the name of the spirit, it would be the same thing as trying to turn on a lamp that doesn't have a bulb in it.

  Mom pursed her lips tightly and studied the rolling backpack for a moment. "It seems to me we should probably glean as much information from this spirit before sending it back," she said. "I'll admit I'm kind of concerned that it manifested as a poltergeist and attacked Mrs Gilbert."

  "How come?" Marcus asked. Mom had a look of genuine worry on her face.

  "Because it went nuts in Mrs Gilbert's house and after I got it into the teddy bear you got drilled by some kind of dark spell," I said. "Mom is saying that it could have done any number of things, but to attack a person who is alive, well, I guess that's probably not a good sign."

  Mom positively glared at me. "Marcus was
attacked?
Julie, what the hell was Marcus doing in a poltergeist infested house. He could have been killed!"

  "But I didn't detect any malice, Mom," I said. I wasn't going to hear the end of this for weeks. "I even told Marcus to stay with Mrs Gilbert. This all happened just as I was about to leave!"

  Marcus nodded and tried to help. "It's my fault, Mrs Richardson. I probably should have stayed outside."

  Mom clenched her jaw. "Indeed. We'll talk about this later, young lady. In the meantime bring the backpack to the shed and throw it in the circle. Make sure you bind that ring good and tight because whoever pulled that spirit into the mortal world will probably be looking for it and if they attacked Marcus, they won't even think twice about attacking us."

  God, I just can't win! I try to help Mrs Gilbert reclaim her house and I wind up getting chewed out in the process. Realizing that Mom was definitely going to lay into me once Marcus went home, I let out a sigh of resignation and headed to the shed with my best friend in tow.

  Yep. My life rocks.

 
 

 
 
 

The ring my mother was referring to is a four foot in diameter marble circle set into the floor of what she calls "the shed". It's actually a protective ring that contains or preserves whatever is inside, but it takes a whisper of magic in order for it to work, otherwise it's pretty much useless. The shed looks like your average double-wide storage barn, but that's just from the outside. If martial arts masters have a dojo to practice their craft and train a worthy apprentice, our shed is a supernatural dojo where Mom does everything from experimenting with new spells and potions to teaching me to control my magic; which tends to go a little bit nuts if I blow my concentration.

  I decided it was a wise choice to call my mom in on this one, so I handed Marcus the backpack and I slipped the key into the old railway switch padlock on the shed door and disarmed the protective spells carved into the doorframe. We stepped inside and three large candles immediately lit up, giving the dusty room a warm, orange glow.

  I pointed to the ring in the center of the cold cement floor. "Just put the backpack in the center of the circle, Marcus," I said.

  He shuffled to the middle of the shed and gingerly placed the bag inside the ring. I knelt at the twelve o'clock position and touched the edge of the shining marble circle with my index finger with a whisper of magic. The barely audible words flowed out from my lips, charging the air with supernatural energy that tingled and hummed for a few seconds until the ring arced with a blinding white flash and then quickly snapped shut. I allowed myself a satisfied smile and I stepped back and waited for Mom to arrive.

  Marcus sat down on the floor and crossed his legs. "So, uh, Julie," he said. "What happens now?"

  I gave him a shrug and fixed my gaze on the backpack. "Just some low-level magic. Mom's going to release the spirit from the teddy bear and we're probably going to grill it for information."

  His lips curled up into a mischievous smile. "Nice. So you're going to play good cop, bad cop, is that it?"

  "More like spiritual social worker," I said flatly. "She's going to try to get its name, but more importantly, we gotta figure out whether it can offer any clues as to who yanked it into the mortal realm."

  Marcus nodded and shifted his weight onto the heels of his hands. "You know, most people our age are hanging out at the mall or partying as opposed to having an intervention with a dead person."

  I shrugged. "Yeah, and when they run face first into a class-five spectre that decides to crash one of their boring parties, who are they going to turn to for help?"

  He raised a finger. "Good point."

  The backpack continued to move as if we'd stuffed a puppy inside.

  The shed door opened and Mom walked in carrying a small cast-iron pot along with a soda bottle filled with a black liquid. She knelt down beside me and placed the pot at the twelve o'clock position and then unscrewed the cap on the pop bottle. I hunched over to get a close look at what she was doing and my stomach started doing backflips the moment she began pouring the inky black liquid into the pot.

  "What's that stuff?" I asked. "It smells like ass!"

  "It's an extract of enchanted juniper root and sacred tallow," she said, screwing the cap back on. "If someone or something detects my magic and decides to take a shot at us while we're releasing the spirit, with any luck you'll be protected. Now smear some under your eyes. You too, Marcus."

  I scrunched up my nose and gave her a disgusted look. "You're
not
serious, are you?"

  She heaved a sigh as she stuck two fingers into the pot and promptly smeared some of the disgusting goop on my face. I guess that answered my question.

  Marcus gingerly dipped an index finger into the pot and applied two thick, black streaks under his eyes which made him look like an emaciated American football player.

  "Yep, this stuff definitely smells like ass," he said as he scrunched up his nose. "Why around the eyes, by the way?"

  Mom covered her face with the muck and said, "You've heard the eyes are the window to the soul?"

  "Yeah," said Marcus.

  "Where do you think the saying came from? Your soul experiences the mortal world through your eyes, Marcus. If a counter-spell somehow gets through the sentinels surrounding the shed, it could go straight through your peepers and infect the very fabric of your soul. When that happens, your spiritual essence will wind up in the hands of the person sending the dark spell, and you'll be in a world of hurt awful bloody fast. This ointment should prevent it from happening – just call it supernatural sunscreen."

  I motioned for Marcus to step back from the circle as Mom wiped her hands on her apron and knelt. She was silent for a moment and then held out her hands to begin the spell. Instantly the atmosphere inside the shed tingled with energy, making the marble ring glow like a fluorescent bar. The backpack began thrashing violently within the protective circle and I reached out my left hand to feel Mom's spell take shape.

  "Spirit!" my mother bellowed. "Be released and take form within my ring!"

  A hazy blue cloud drifted out of the backpack and floated clumsily around the confines of the circle. With each contact, the invisible wall of magic surrounding the protective circle spat out blinding flecks of energy that bounced across the concrete floor like sparks from a welder's torch. I crawled over to the six o'clock position and watched carefully as Mom got back to her feet, her face a mask of grim determination.

  And I had to admit it, she looked every inch the professional witch.

  "Speak thy name, spirit!" my mother called out with calm authority. The ghostly cloud swirled around at the sound of her voice, and I could hear a faint whisper emanating from the middle of the circle. I silenced my thoughts in the hope that I could hone in on its magical signature and I couldn't quite make out whether I was hearing a male or female voice.

  "John Stearne," the spirit whispered. "I was John Stearne and my time is long past. I shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be here."

  Mom pursed her lips tightly and watched as the cloud of energy grew brighter, bleaching out the inside of the shed. "Why do you choose to dwell in the world of the living, spirit?" she asked, maintaining a strong measure of authority in her voice.

  The cloud drifted closer to my mother, the swirling vapour crackling loudly with patterns of energy.

  "'Tis not a choice," it said, this time a little bit louder. "It tore me away from my place of rest. It peels away what little remains of who I was. I sinned in life. Perhaps it is because of my sins that it demands penance from me."

  "Who?" Mom asked.

  "That which has always been and always shall be," the spirit said. "It tempts and it tantalizes. It does as it pleases, for that is its purpose. It fears that which is to come."

  Marcus gave me a nervous look, and I motioned for him to keep calm.

  "Why would someone pull a spirit into the mortal realm, Mom?" I asked.

  "That's the mystery," she said without taking her eyes off the spectre. "Whoever is responsible, they're not at all concerned about flouting the natural order of life and death."

  She stretched out her arms again and took a deep breath. "Spirit, are there others like you who are trapped between here and there?"