Ghost of an enchantment, p.9
Ghost of an Enchantment, page 9
Lucas turned back to Stella. “Do you know much about ghosts?”
Stiffening, her gaze went to the van as it drove away, then back to him. “Why do you ask?”
He took off his hat and rubbed a hand over his head. “Ah—” How was he supposed to explain what he just saw? He put his hat back on. “Mr. Pritt is having some problems and it’s way outside my wheelhouse.”
She blinked.
“I could ask Zack—he told me he knew you last night, by the way—but since you’re here in front of me and he told me you consulted on his cases sometimes, I thought I’d ask you.”
She blinked again. “What sort of problems is Mr. Pritt having?”
“Floating books?” Grimacing, he knew it was more of a question than a statement, and held his breath for her response. How could a person take him seriously saying something like that?
But instead of laughing, her shoulders relaxed a fraction, a smile hovering at the corner of her mouth. “I was consulting with Liller Investigations about a similar scenario.”
He let out a long, slow breath of relief. “Oh good.” When her eyebrows shot up, he let out a nervous laugh. “Not, ‘Oh good, there are floating books,’ but ‘Oh good, you’re not laughing at me for mentioning floating books.’”
“I’d never laugh at you, Lucas,” she said, and her expression had turned so earnest, it took his breath away.
With her entire focus on him, his heart beat a little faster. Caramel eyes searched his, but he wasn’t sure what she searched for. Then she whispered something under her breath, something he couldn’t decipher, and stepped forward with purpose, only a foot away from him now.
After a second, she whispered something else and stepped back.
What was she doing?
He thought about what Zack had told him the night before. Looking at Stella’s cherub face framed in a halo of hair, he had a hard time imagining her brewing potions or straddling a broom or any of the other images he associated with witches.
What did it mean to be Wiccan? He knew nothing of their beliefs and should remedy that as soon as possible. Probably not wise to rely on what he’d seen on the big screen or TV. But if Zack felt confident consulting with her on multiple cases, she had to have some sort of expertise. Cleanses. Enchantments. Blessings. What did any of that mean?
Stella stepped forward again, then asked, “Is there anything else going on in Mr. Pritt’s house beside floating books?” She stepped back.
Lucas cleared his throat. “A blender turned on and off?” And he’d thought having a day with four non-break-ins had been strange.
“Is Mr. Pritt still at home?” Peeking around him, she squinted toward the front window with its dated floral drapes.
“Yes.”
She focused back on him, her eyes surprised, whispered something, and stepped forward again.
Shrugging, he said, “He seems to be okay sharing the space with whatever is making the books float as long as it doesn’t crawl into bed with him.” For some reason, the more he talked to Stella, the easier it was to say these unbelievable things. Maybe it was the fact she seemed so relaxed about the whole thing. In fact, as she did her step forward step back thing, this was probably the most relaxed he’d seen her. Maybe the movement calmed her in some way?
And was it just him, or was she lingering closer to him this time? He stayed perfectly still, making sure he wasn’t the one moving closer to her. Because it definitely could be. She smelled like some sort of flower, something familiar, but he didn’t have a name for it, and it drew him.
While she whispered again, she shifted and it brought her a fraction closer. He forced himself to stay still when what he wanted was to edge closer and see how she’d respond.
“So you’re here because you know I consult on strange cases sometimes. That’s it?” Her hands moved lightly in front of her.
No. That wasn’t it, but it seemed like the answer she wanted. He nodded. “Yeah. That’s all.”
“Official business.”
He nodded again. “Official business. That’s right.”
She inhaled deep, gave him one nod, and stepped away from him, her fingers touching her pendant lightly.
Disappointed in the retreat, he glanced at her front door. What were the chances she’d let him take another look at those black circles in her living room? None. He knew that deep down. Maybe Aubrey would let him in, but Stella wouldn’t.
She cleared her throat, grabbing his attention. “I’ll be looking into the issue for the Lillers, doing some research. I can let you know what I find. It might help Mr. Pritt too.”
“Where will you be doing that?” He should have asked Zack more questions, he should have stayed at the bar last night and gotten details on the kind of work Liller Investigations did. He’d never wanted to dig deeper before, maybe because he wasn’t sure he’d like the answers and didn’t want to lose Zack as a friend. Now he was at a disadvantage. Because if he’d just watched a bunch of books float, he should probably trust his friend who worked at a ghost hunting company.
Stella hesitated, then shrugged. “I’m heading to Langport in the morning. But there’s somewhere I need to be right now, so…” She stared at him at length.
“Right. Okay.” He took off his hat and rubbed his forehead, reluctant to go. With one last glance at her front door, he nodded, then replaced his hat. “Be seeing you.”
“Sure,” she said, taking another decisive step away from him.
With one last nod, he jogged down her driveway to his police car. After sliding into the front seat, he glanced at her house. She’d already gone inside.
The curtains fluttered. She must be watching him.
He didn’t know why that pleased him, but it did. Even though he couldn’t see her face, he gave her a salute. The curtain was let go, hanging straight once more.
With a small smile, he pulled away from the curb.
12
As the police cruiser pulled away from the curb, Stella turned to glare at Aubrey. “You were spying on me.”
Aubrey smiled, a paint roller in her hand. The scent of acrylic paint overrode the burnt wood smell that had infused the house since yesterday. When Stella had left this morning, her friend had been wearing her paint clothes, determined to remove the mark from the ceiling.
“Of course,” Aubrey said without a hint of guilt in her features. “I heard voices and investigated. And to my delight, you were talking to Officer Martinez. There’s nothing like a man in a uniform.”
“Don’t call him that.” The words came out before she could stop them.
Aubrey’s eyebrows shot up. “Call him what?”
“Officer,” Stella muttered, heading to the kitchen. She knew she was being unreasonable by objecting to his actual title, but every time she thought of him as a cop, she got all stiff inside. When he was out of uniform, then she was able to relax a little bit.
If it weren’t for his seductive energy, the pull he had on her she couldn’t explain, she’d keep her distance. At least, she’d told herself that three times already today. When she’d seen him on Mr. Pritt’s porch, she had to admit she’d felt a little thrill—despite the uniform. She’d been happy to see him even as her feet had run in the opposite direction.
But instead of letting her go, pretending she wasn’t there, he’d wanted to talk to her. And what did that mean?
Her gaze drifted to the ceiling. The black mark had only lightened a little. A drop cloth covered the oval rug she’d found yesterday at the thrift store. Stella stepped up to the circle on the ceiling and willed it to disappear.
“I don’t think it’s going to go away completely,” Aubrey said, blowing a stray hair out of her face. “I’ve already finished two coats and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.”
It’s hard to erase magic.
Nana’s words tumbled through her head. One of the many lessons she taught Stella about Wiccan beliefs.
Every woman in their family line had become a witch, most with some sort of natural ability, like her. Before the Wiccan religion was even conceived, paganism helped her ancestors learn to understand and control their abilities, helped to focus them.
One of her earliest memories was Nana teaching her the dampening spell. They had stood in the backyard, before all the other houses had gone up around them, the magnolia tree on her right, the oak on her left. Stella held a white candle as Nana taught her the words. She’d said them over and over again, adjusting the tone and a word here and there, understanding each spell was personal and she had to make them her own.
Nana taught her so many things, about being cautious, about embracing nature, about being careful to never take, but always give. And if a spell created too much energy, then she needed an effective grounding. With her very first spell she’d touched the bark of the magnolia tree and it had been enough. But that wasn’t always the case.
A couple years ago, she’d gotten too close to Loki after having practiced a powerful protection spell, and his hair had stood on end for the rest of the day. She’d felt so rotten about it she’d given him twice his regular allotment of treats.
Glancing around the living room, she asked, “Where’s Loki?”
“Still sleeping on your bed,” Aubrey replied, extending the handle of the roller so she could do another coat on the ceiling. “It’s all he seems to be doing today.”
Poor Loki. He’d been through something terrible. What had he seen? What had he experienced? The only way to know for sure would be to cross into the portal herself.
As soon as she had the thought, her whole body tingled, the pendant at her heart throbbing. She touched it, unsure if it liked the idea or not, its energy swelling in a way it hadn’t before. There was no way she’d step into the portal without knowing where it led. The Book of Shadows in Langport would hopefully be able to shed some light on the topic.
Aubrey’s voice cut into her thoughts. “So what were you and Lucas discussing?” Her eyes on the ceiling, she emphasized his name without meeting Stella’s gaze.
Narrowing her eyes at her friend, Stella debated whether she should answer or not. There was only one way for this conversation to go. But lying wasn’t an option. “He was asking for advice about a thing happening with Mr. Pritt’s house.”
Aubrey lowered her arm and focused her attention entirely on her. “What kind of thing?”
She blew out a long breath. “A ghost kind of thing?” She knew she made it sound like a question but couldn’t help it.
Aubrey set the roller in the paint tray and wiped her hands on her apron. “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked, worry tightening her forehead.
“That thing I was consulting with Grace about?”
Aubrey nodded for her to continue.
“It was down the street.”
Aubrey tipped her head. “Because…?”
Tossing up her hands in defeat, Stella said, “Because something escaped when Loki returned and I have no idea what it is, but it’s camped out in the house down the street and is moving furniture and stuff there and at Mr. Pritt’s house too.” She took a loud breath because she’d run out of air, and waited for Aubrey to freak out.
The plastic sheet covering the couch made a squishy sound when Aubrey sat down like her legs had given out on her. She stared out into space for a moment, then asked, “What could have escaped?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out,” Stella said, sitting down beside her. More squishy noises. “I’m going to Langport to consult the Book of Shadows there.”
“Is that safe?”
The question had Stella’s head snapping back a fraction. “Why wouldn’t it be safe?”
“Because something escaped whatever that weird ring thing is, and that means they came from somewhere, and that’s some scary shit, that’s why.” Aubrey’s inhales got shorter, her body more tense.
Stella focused calm energy outward, trying to soothe her friend before she worked herself up. Capturing Aubrey’s hands in hers, Stella turned her body fully to face her. “I believe the ring is a key to a portal of some type, yes, but it’s tucked safely away. We don’t need to worry about it right now. And the entities that escaped, well—” Stella huffed out a breath. “They don’t seem malicious, more mischievous than anything, like a cat.”
At her own description, her mind started going. The energy she felt in the house had been a lot like a cat’s, and she hadn’t thought of it until now. Maybe her search in the Book of Shadows tomorrow would be a little easier.
“Maybe you should take someone with you just in case,” Aubrey said, interrupting her thoughts. “Maybe Officer Martinez—I mean, maybe Lucas?”
At the sound of his name, Stella’s whole body hummed. “Why did you call him to your store yesterday?”
Aubrey’s posture slumped. “Finn told me someone had been in the store the night before. But how was I supposed to tell that to a cop?”
Unease crawled through Stella. Someone had broken into the store? “What exactly did Finn tell you?” The ghost didn’t actually speak to Aubrey, but had different ways of communicating.
“He wrote ‘break in’ on the glass countertop about a hundred times. I checked everything, though. Nothing was taken. But he wrote it so many times, I called the police anyway. You should have seen Lucas’s face when I told him the break-in was just a feeling I had.” She ran a shaky hand through her hair, white paint smearing on her temple.
“They didn’t take anything? Not even the float money?”
Aubrey shook her head. “Nothing was touched.”
Why would someone break in but take nothing? Maybe Finn had been playing a joke on Aubrey. It wasn’t really his style, but Stella wouldn’t put it beyond him. He was a twelve-year-old boy, after all.
Which was one of the reasons she’d put stronger wards on their house. She knew Finn had been pissed at the time she did it because he wasn’t able to comfortably enter the house anymore, but he had seemed to get over it after a while. Stella had needed a ghost-free space and thought Aubrey would benefit from one too—even if Finn had been with her friend since she was ten years old.
“So you’ll do it?” Aubrey asked, pulling her back to the conversation. “You’ll ask Lucas to go with you to Langport?”
“Why would he want to go with me?”
Calmer now, Aubrey looked at her like she’d grown a third eye. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because he’s totally into you?”
The hum of her body turned into a full-on glow. “He is not.”
“Totally. He looks at you like you’re a puzzle he wants to solve.”
Stella straightened. “I don’t want to be solved. I’m not a case.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. He looks at you with those eyes of his like everyone else in the room could grow a second and third head and he wouldn’t notice. You know, how a girl wants a hot guy to look at her.”
Had he been looking at her that way? When they were together, she couldn’t concentrate on much besides trying to combat his energy, trying to keep it together. Because if she let it wash over her, she was pretty positive she’d be wrapping herself around him and melting into his skin. And how forward would that be after only meeting the guy a week ago?
Plus, she couldn’t open herself up to him like that, couldn’t take a chance on him. She knew what happened when she was honest about herself with guys. They fit in two categories. Either they pushed her away, or they tried to control her, becoming possessive jerks.
When Nana did talk about her father, it was always about how he’d tricked her mother into going with him, how he controlled everything about her, how he possessed her.
She’d told Zack the truth earlier; in a professional capacity, she wasn’t ashamed of who and what she was. But she’d learned a long time ago if she was interested in a guy, she needed to keep the Wiccan part of herself hidden. To reveal herself in all her unconventional glory only meant heartache and pain.
Except Lucas already knew she was a witch, and instead of running in the other direction, he’d sought her out for advice. The thought had her straightening. He’d sought her out. And he’d talked to her about strange things. That was big, bigger than she’d realized until right now.
Now Aubrey’s suggestion she take him along didn’t sound so bizarre. Could she ask him to join her on her trip tomorrow?
Stella shook off the thought and her eyes focused back on the circle on the ceiling. What were they going to do about it? Because there was no doubt about it, a third coat of paint still hadn’t erased the sucker.
13
Lucas tossed his hat on his desk, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and fell into his chair.
“How was that call?” Joe asked across from him. “Same as yesterday? Total waste of time?”
“Not quite,” Lucas muttered, firing up his computer.
How was he supposed to write up what he’d seen today in a report and not get laughed at for the rest of his life?
He kept coming up with the same answer. He couldn’t.
Opening up an incident report, Lucas began entering Mr. Pritt’s information. He almost didn’t have to look at his notes, since he’d made a similar incident report yesterday for the same man. But when he got to the box where he was supposed to write up what had happened, his fingers hovered above the keyboard. If he went with the truth, it would sound preposterous. Hell, his reports from yesterday with all the non-break-ins had raised a lot of eyebrows. How was this going to look?
So maybe he couldn’t go with the truth exactly. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have a case to solve, a mystery to unravel. People still needed his help, and just because he might have to get creative with his report writing didn’t mean he was going to turn his back on this.
Had that strange noise from yesterday been connected with the floating books? If it had, wouldn’t the noise have come from Mr. Pritt’s house, not Stella’s? But he’d heard it himself and it had come from the direction of Stella’s house. Joe had heard it too, they hadn’t imagined it, and remembering the strangeness of it now set him on edge.
