Six
SIX
L ynette Fornell, a.k.a. Aurora Moon, lived in the older part of town, where Lorne had lived with his brother and niece when he first moved to town. Unlike the newer developments, the houses here stood on larger plots with enormous mature trees, and Lynette’s house, which had been her parents’ before they moved to Miami two years ago, used to be called home by a very large family. But as is the way of things sometimes, when you go off to college, you end up staying in that new place or moving somewhere else for your new career. That was what happened with her three older brothers and two younger sisters. Years ago, the four-story Greek Revival home had been filled with love and laughter, as Lynette’s grandparents and her aunt had all been in residence there as well. It had been, Amanda told me, a place she had loved to visit. They had been close once, she and Lynette, but that was before Amanda’s world had been turned upside down, first by an assault, then by her family abandoning her and being shunned by friends. Lynette had been one of those who turned their back on Amanda when she was needed the most. Now, she and Amanda never crossed paths, Lynette always quick to scuttle out of the way of the person who owned most of Osprey.
The house sat at the end of a tree-lined street that seemed dark and desolate, the gas streetlamps providing a subdued, eerie illumination. During the past week, we’d had a lot of summer storms, lots of rain and wind that accounted for the debris-strewn sidewalks, many of which were raised and cracked by roots of trees older than the town.
Lorne parked his police vehicle on the street, and the two of us got out and started up the many steps leading to the house. All the homes on the street were elevated, the driveways all on hills.
“I should have driven up there,” he said when we were on our third set of six brick steps. The manicured terraces flanking them boasted beautiful roses, peonies, shrubs, and ornamental pieces. I preferred the lush greenery and wildflowers of Corvus, but I could appreciate the planning and attention to detail it took to maintain something so perfect even in the face of blustery weather.
“This way we get to admire the landscaping,” I offered, smiling at him when he turned to look at me.
At the top, a heavy chain blocked the driveway, which meant Lorne would have had to park at a sharp angle. I pointed to it, and he nodded in agreement. Climbing the steps had been smarter after all.
Lorne eyed the uncanny, shadowy recess of the front-door columns. “Why are we here when it looks like this whole street is asleep for the night?”
“Ring the doorbell and see,” I suggested.
“Do you see a doorbell?”
“Actually no. Just use the knocker.”
“What?”
I grinned at him and pointed at the polished brass lion head.
“Why is this creepy?” he asked as he used it, the sound louder than he was expecting from the way he jerked away.
“Because the sky is dark, so is the street, and it’s eerily quiet. Also, you’ve had a weird evening before this. I’m sure everything feels a bit surreal.”
There was thunder in the distance then that made Lorne turn and scowl.
“Cue the storm,” I teased him.
“Why aren’t you on edge?”
“Because you’re here with me,” I replied honestly.
At that moment, sconces on either side of the door lit up, and the door opened to reveal Lynette Fornell in her Aurora Moon attire.
I did not agree with Diana Flint on much, but she was right that Lynette dressed like a Gothic vampire. But if you looked like Lynette, then you could. She was stunning, the black lace dress hugging her curves and accentuating her long, sculpted legs. The deep V framed lush breasts, and her long black curls contrasted strikingly with her smooth, pale skin. With her big blue eyes staring at Lorne, I wondered if perhaps he wasn’t speaking because he was overwhelmed by her beauty. I wouldn’t have blamed him.
“Ms. Fornell?”
She nodded quickly, and only then did I realize she was shaking.
His scowl surprised me. “We got a call that there was some kind of disturbance here. Are you in distress?”
“I think there was someone—a prowler, maybe—in the backyard by the pool. I called, and I think my neighbors did too.”
“Okay,” Lorne said, pulling his flashlight from his duty belt and flipping it on. “Go inside and lock the door while I check around out here.”
She turned to me then. “Will you come in and wait with me?”
“I should go with?—”
“That’s a good idea,” Lorne cut me off. “Wait with Ms. Fornell, and I’ll be right back.”
Before I could argue, he went left, stepping off the side of the porch and dropping the three feet or so onto the pavement, then disappearing from sight.
“Xander,” she said, and when I looked at her, I again noticed the shaking. “Aren’t you wondering why I’m dressed like this?”
“It’s none of my business.”
“I was supposed to have a séance tonight at the stroke of midnight. But I canceled it.”
“Why?”
“Could you come inside?”
I didn’t groan, which I was proud of myself for. I stepped into the foyer of the mansion and waited while she shut and locked the front door. The moment she was back beside me, she slipped her hand around my bicep.
“What is this?”
“I know we’re not friends, Xander, and I’ve never been anything but dismissive of you, but I also know that you’re probably the one person in town who won’t think I’m insane.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“There’s something in the house.”
“What do you mean?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think because of all the séances I’ve had here, all the spirits I’ve invited in, some got trapped here with me.”
But it didn’t work that way. Spirits crossed through the veil if they wanted to, if there was something to say, to reveal, but walls did not hold them. They stayed for the same reasons people did—out of loyalty, love, fear, or simply having no other choice.
“I think there’s something in the house that’s using me to call them here and is now preying on them.”
I listened without saying a word because I could tell she was scared. But I was also pretty certain that was the plot of a movie Amanda and I watched years ago. Just like how she now made Lorne watch police procedurals and then asked him what they got right or wrong, she did the same with me with anything paranormal. She was always so disappointed when I explained to her how things actually worked.
“It’s very recent,” Lynette said, “and I feel like it’s chasing them through the?—”
We both heard it then, padded footsteps at the end of the hall, as the lights went off.
Lynette gasped and turned into me, eyes closed tight, shivering hard. “It’s some kind of animal,” she whimpered. “Which makes no sense. I don’t speak to them.”
She didn’t speak to anything, but this was not the moment to point that out. My grandmother had a friend, a medium, who had visited us when I was in elementary school. She had clarified to me the difference between being able to speak with the spirits of the dead, versus having visions of the future or hearing voices, which was more about being psychic. As far as I knew, after years of having Amanda show me Lynette’s Yelp reviews where many began with, “Psychic, my ass…,” she could not be depended on to contact the spirit realm. More telling, though, was her reassuring everyone that the Osprey Public Library was not haunted. Mrs. Radcliffe would disagree.
“Why would there be ghosts of animals in my house?” she asked.
I wasn’t certain what was there, but in this instance, she could be correct. All the ghosts of animals I’d ever seen were waiting for their people, and when they passed, the animal crossed with them. But as it was doubtful she’d listen to me, I didn’t offer an explanation. “Keep your eyes closed,” I ordered under my breath.
She bent her head, fisted her hands against her chest, and didn’t move, content, it seemed, to be close to me.
“Show me what hides in the dark,” I whispered to the fire that appeared in my hand. “Illuminate all corners.”
The flames shot out of my hand, flying away from me, and I watched intently as shadows grew large and ominous, resembling terrifying animals with open mouths full of sharp teeth, ready to pounce…but only for a moment. It was like they were absorbed back into the walls, as though living there, reined in as the light made everything visible. It was not at all normal.
“When I went down to the basement earlier, it was so cold, and the lights wouldn’t come on, but I told myself I was being stupid, and since I had my phone, I used the flashlight on that.”
I was listening to her and watching for my flames.
“But as soon as I got to the stairs to come back up, I could have sworn something was there. I ran as fast as I could, and it almost got me.”
“What?”
“I don’t know, but it growled. I swear to God.”
“Did you actually see anything outside?” I was thinking that whatever was scaring her might have come in.
“I might have seen something pass outside the window,” she responded. “But I think it was a deer.”
Or it could have been nothing.
“I called the Wellers across the street to check if they saw anything.”
Which was why Pete reported to Lorne that there was a disturbance. Things escalated so quickly in our small town, with or without facts. No one had seen a thing, but still, the calls had been made.
“I’ve been seeing things out of the corner of my eye all day.”
“In the house?”
“Inside, outside, everywhere.”
I wasn’t surprised. I could feel the weight of the stagnant air. “May I ask when was the last time you cleansed this house?”
“Never,” she confessed quietly. “Which is terrible, I know.”
“Do you?”
“I just…it would take forever to do.”
“Yes,” I agreed because she was right. The house was enormous. “But the problem is that whatever grief and pain people have been carrying in here when you have séances has stayed and is literally sticking around.”
She sighed heavily. “Do you truly believe in all that?”
“Yes,” I said, annoyed that she didn’t. “Not to mention that most of these old houses are haunted to begin with.”
“I know that, but ghosts don’t normally try and scare you. That’s why I think there’s some other entity here.”
Normally, I would have said that was unlikely. But I had no idea what had come through the rift. Conversely, I felt a lot of heavy, old energy, pain, regret, and sadness in the house. And while nothing felt malignant, I couldn’t say for certain until my flames returned. At the moment it seemed as though everything was simply hovering, stagnating, thickening by the second. I wondered when she’d last opened a window. Even a gentle breeze, meandering from room to room, could do wonders. It was why opening the windows when people were sick to let in some fresh air was so universal.
“It seems like the house is full of ghosts,” she barely got out.
“I don’t think so. But you do have a house filled with echoes and spirits you’ve invited into your home without ever releasing the energy.”
She nodded and got closer, pressing her head under my chin. “Maybe.”
No maybe about it. “You have no choice but to spend a lot of time getting sage into every nook and cranny of this house if you want it to feel alive again in here.”
“Fine,” she agreed, sounding uncertain.
“You have to have faith, though, in the use of the sage,” I pointed out.
“I can use a sage bundle,” she snapped, lifting her head to meet my gaze. “I do that all the time for people who come in the house.”
But waving it around without giving directions to whatever was in the house did nothing. People always forgot that intention was the most important part of cleansing and magic on a whole.
“And I know I should have treated you the same way I did Cordelia and the others and added you to my coven,” she continued, taking a step back, no longer scared and cowering, annoyed now. “I mean, we’re all doing what we can to make a living, am I right?”
I squinted at her.
“Oh, come on. You’re saying there’s more to you than that, Xan?” she asked, so smugly, patronizing me, the scoff and the added eye roll telling me what she really thought of magic. “Give me a break. No one is buying your witch-of-the-woods bullshit. You keep up that persona to sell the crap you make at the festivals.”
“Do you want the house cleansed? It’s your choice,” I said coldly.
“Why? Are you offering?”
“Yes,” I replied, irritated that I couldn’t just tell her to go to hell. I should walk out, but there was so much rotting energy in the house, I couldn’t simply leave. Unless she said no.
“Then yes. I don’t want to be jumping at shadows. Not in my own home. So please, clear it all out,” she said with a wave of her hand.
I had the urge to smack her.
“And listen, Xan, I would actually love to carry your stuff in my shop.”
“You mean my crap?”
“Do me a favor and pull the stick out of your ass, will you? In truth, I see how fast your jam, tea, and other things you make during the festival sell out and—shit,” she gasped as the first of my flames returned to my hand.
“Go on,” I said snidely, which was terrible of me, but both she and Cordelia gave witchcraft a bad name.
“What the hell, Xander…is that fire in your hand?” she asked breathlessly.
Opening my mouth to answer, I was too late. She passed out cold. Fortunately for me, she was not a big person, because I only had the one arm to clutch her with.
“Steady,” I bid my flame, which kept it where it was, and closed my hand. It remained floating in the air, illuminating all the corners of the room.
I carried Lynette to a love seat and laid her down. I would have tucked a throw around her, but it was the middle of summer. Even with the amount of air I was going to have to blow through her house, she wasn’t about to get cold.
When Lorne knocked on the front door, I darted over, unlocked the dead bolt, and let him in, smiling as he strode by.
“What happened to her?” he asked, standing over the collapsed woman.
“She saw the fire in my hand.”
“Ah.”
I shrugged.
“And? Anything spooky in here?”
“I have a theory.”
“G’head.”
“Help me open the windows, will you?”
“Love, there are a fuckton of windows in this house.”
“I know, but we’ve got to get it aired out, and there’s no time for me to go room to room in this mausoleum and get every corner.”
“You had me do it in my old house too,” he pointed out.
“Yes,” I agreed, gesturing him over to me. “But this has to be more of a forced cleansing than a gentle one.”
“What if there’s something scary outside?” he asked.
“Is there?”
“Not that I could see,” he grumbled.
“You just don’t want to open the windows,” I goaded him.
“You’re right, I don’t, and I definitely don’t want to stay here and close them all again afterward,” he said belligerently.
“We only need a few open,” I soothed him as I began the process.
He helped, he always did, and when he returned, I took his face in my hands.
“Oh,” he whispered, his eyes closing as I kissed him. After a moment, I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he opened for me so I could rub my tongue over his, pushing, tangling as I felt the connection spark between us, the magic that flowed back and forth, a living pulse.
One of his arms slid around me, tight, pressing my body to his, as his left hand cupped the back of my head so I couldn’t move away. He wanted to be kissed.
We stood there together, warmth and love gathering around us, drawn there, like sitting around a fire on a cold day. I felt the house itself respond, savoring our closeness. I also felt a pulse as though it was trying to breathe, to get its heart beating again, but it was being smothered, suffocated by something else.
After a minute, he parted his lips from mine, staring down at me with darker eyes than usual, pupils blown.
“You were worried when I was outside alone.”
Perceptive man. “Yes,” I croaked out, licking my lips, noting that his gaze was instantly there. “Stay here with me.”
He nodded. “I bet the basement in this house is creepy as hell. But I will go down there if you want me to.”
I shook my head, smiling as he slipped a hand over my ass. “No, now we just need to get the front and back doors open, and along with what we’ve already done, that should be enough.”
“Okay,” he agreed, giving me a last kiss before stepping back, or trying to. Hard to do with my arms still wrapped around him tight. “You gotta let go.”
But I needed the connection. “One more.”
Deep, husky chuckle that I loved because it was so very smug, his certainty of my love there in the sound. “It’s a hardship,” he teased before he bent and kissed me again, taking my mouth, my tongue, and I felt the power in the man as he clutched me to him.
In the middle of uncertainty and a mystery, I needed the grounding. When everything was whirling around me, the bedrock of Lorne’s love was even better than being home on Corvus. Because Corvus calmed the river of magic that flowed through me, but the human part of me remained fearful and on edge. Lorne could soothe my magic, as it connected to that which lived in him, and then reminded me that I was loved as well. The primal pull to be close to him assuaged my fears, which in turn helped me focus on what I could control.
When I eased back, he followed, keeping our lips sealed together, and when I laughed, he smiled as we parted.
“We have to cleanse this place,” I told him. “Because I think there is something in here that needs to be driven out.”
His brows furrowed. “Like what? A ghost?”
“No. Something alive.”
“Okay,” he whispered, glancing around. “That’s not scary at all.”
“It’s going to be all right,” I assured him. “We can do this. We can purge whatever is in here.”
“Listen, I don’t wanna stay here while you go home to get smoke wands,” he informed me. “Because again, this house is creepy as fuck.”
“Not as much as you think,” I asserted because I’d felt the house respond to having people who loved each other on the premises. “I mean yes, there’s something more than heavy, sticky energy that’s never been purged, but whatever is in here with us is not corporeal. It’s still made of shadows, nothing tangible.”
“So what’re you gonna do?”
“ We’re gonna go to the kitchen.”
“Which is where?” A flame was suddenly at his shoulder, answering him, as my magic was compelled to do. “Okay, show me,” he directed.
Always amazing when Lorne took my magic in stride.
As the flame left, he took hold of my hand, and the two of us followed it out of the sitting room, through a large living room, and down a short hall to a massive kitchen. Once there, I started looking through cupboards for spices.
“I’m gonna go get the doors open while you get whatever you need in here.”
“Promise me there’s nothing outside that can hurt you.”
“There’s not. I swear. Just an owl, some bats, and a seriously overgrown backyard.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah,” he said with a grimace. “The front looks great, but the back is giving big-time horror-movie vibes.”
I snickered.
“It’s a total metaphor for life,” he commented.
“In what way?”
“In the way that what people can see is manicured perfection, but what they can’t see is wasting away behind the facade.”
“Huh.”
“I’ll stop now. This lesson on outward appearances is lost on Lynette anyway, since she’s passed out.”
“Then hurry up and get the doors open, Chief MacBain.”
He grunted and left me in the dark kitchen, not helped at all by the fact that it was painted black, with black marble floors and black quartz countertops.
I suspected that some of the ambience of the house would be destroyed once I cleansed it, but I had no choice. Lynette had lingering pain and sadness that had basically absorbed into the walls, now made manifest by whatever else had either slithered into her home or been placed there on purpose. This was what came of never doing anything as simple as airing the place out, as well as not being vigilant with wards if you gave séances. Either way, I would purge the house of the persistent gloom that had probably sunk down into the earth itself. I had to wonder, if I communed with it, what it would say.
When Lorne came back, the scent of rain, of petrichor, came with him. Underneath that, there was some kind of musk that I breathed in deeply.
“What’re you doing?”
“You smell good.”
He shook his head at me.
“Help me find basil and fennel seed,” I ordered, grinning at him.
He started searching through the cabinets to the right of the sink, and I checked the ones to the left.
“Got it,” he announced. “What else?”
“I need lavender, seeds or dried flowers, whatever you can find, as well as rosemary, yarrow, and marjoram.”
Not long after, we had them all lined up, and I cupped my hands together and had Lorne dump out half the contents of each of the small bottles into them.
“Oh, and cinnamon,” I told him.
“Your favorite,” he rumbled, arching an eyebrow.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re always putting it on me, and I’m your favorite.”
“No argument there.”
He laughed as I smiled at him, and then he did something odd—instead of dumping the cinnamon into my hands, he shook it over the layered herbs, leaned over, and whispered, “Let’s clean this place up for the highest and best of everyone who calls it home.”
I could only stare at him.
“What?”
“I’m impressed.”
He tipped his head. “I know it’s not the same as?—”
I tossed the mixture into the air, and it remained there, floating between us. I did what millions of magicians had done for centuries and dusted off my hands before showing him the fronts and backs. “Ta-da!”
“That’s amazing,” he said, awestruck, smiling at me.
“It is. Look at your magic work.”
“ Your magic,” he corrected. “I don’t have any.”
“Some of mine lives in you, and the longer it stays there, the more it becomes yours.”
“No,” he said, but I heard the slight quiver of excitement.
“Yes,” I declared. “Your words activated this,” I said as the ingredients rolled and sifted together, grinding until it all became first a fine powder and then, finally, suspended in the air like a mist encased in a nearly transparent cloud.
“Wow…that’s incredible. And what happens now?” Lorne asked, wide-eyed.
“Now we send it through the house.” I leaned close to the cloud. “As you were bidden, purify all,” I ordered, then blew hard to get it moving.
We watched the mist spark, heard it crackle, and then there was a powerful gust of wind and it expanded once, then again and again, before turning to smoke. It filled the room, then rolled into the hallway, leaving behind a faint scent of flowers.
“Why gardenia?” Lorne asked.
“Is that what you smell?”
“Yeah. You don’t?”
“I smell roses.”
“Well, either is good, I’m guessing.”
I nodded.
“So why didn’t you do this in my old house?”
“Because it’s like when you cleanse something with sage versus burning palo santo,” I explained as the smoke cleared and the kitchen appeared as though it were suddenly brighter, the overhead light hitting every corner of the room. “You take away all the anger and pain, but you strip away all the blessings as well.”
“Same as taking an antibiotic. You kill the bad bacteria that’s makin’ you sick, but you kill the good stuff in your gut as well.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“So in my case, you wanted to get rid of all my younger brother’s hurt and pain in the house, but keep the love Cass and I had started to build.”
“That’s right,” I said, staring at the man I loved. “You’re quite perceptive.”
“Hey, I’m not just a pretty face.”
“Oh, I know.”
He took hold of my hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed my knuckles.
We returned to the sitting room, where Lynette was still passed out.
“Should we worry she’s not up yet?” Lorne asked.
“I think she’s been stressed, and probably like a lot of people around town, hasn’t been sleeping, so her body is taking a moment to rest.”
There was a boom above us and then some creaking.
“The hell was that?”
“That is magic making changes to the physical plane.”
He squinted at me. “Meaning?”
“What we said—the bad goes out with the good.”
“Not sure I understand what’s happening.”
“I have a hunch,” I said, letting go of his hand and walking to the straight hall connecting the front and back doors. I didn’t step into the wind tunnel, instead stood and watched.
Lorne, who had followed me, pointed at the balls of what appeared to be cobwebs being blown out of the house. “Explain, please.”
“She said she’d been seeing things all day, and I suspect those are them.”
“You’re saying if you didn’t come over that first time and clear out my brother’s house, it would have gotten like this eventually?”
I shook my head. “This is at least a couple of decades of not cleansing the space. The house has been in the Fornell family for a long, long time, and as far as I know, Lynette’s devotion to magic and mediumship only started after her first bakery went bankrupt.”
“She’s not a witch, then.”
“She’s a practitioner, but this goes back to our talk at Kathy’s.”
“About tools.”
“Yes.”
“So the sage itself would have cleansed this place if she had bothered to do that.”
“Correct, in theory. The problem is, she doesn’t believe in it, so she never learned how to use it correctly.”
He cleared his throat. “Remember when the ghost left our home?”
“I do,” I said, seeing shapes in the smoke rolling out the back door.
“How come there’s no nearly corporeal people stopping to speak to us?”
“I suspect that many of them have no actual ties to the house but were brought by others during her séances.”
“And got stuck here.”
“I can’t really say, but normally you don’t have a ghost who can speak to you unless they’re tied to a place or a person. Which none of these are.”
“But you said there was something else in here, alive.”
I nodded. “Yes, but whatever it was, it’s gone now.”
“Really?”
Quiet for a moment, listening, waiting, I could hear the house settling and nothing else. “Yeah. It feels okay in here, and there’s lots of light.”
He glanced around. “I agree.”
“I would check the backyard now.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Something might have happened.”
“Okay, but you want me to stay out of this, right?” He gestured at the rushing wind.
“No, it’s fine. None of this can hurt you. But it’s kicking up dirt and dust that you maybe don’t want all over you.”
“But nothing that could push inside to my soul.”
I grinned at him. “No, love. Your soul is safe.”
Once he left, I stood alone for a bit until Lynette appeared under the archway of the sitting room. Her mouth was open as she stared at the smoke that was barely moving now in a gentle, wafting breeze.
“Xander!” she gasped. “You’re a witch.”
I smiled at her and then watched as the very last of the smoke curled and tumbled and finally rolled out the back door.
“You—how are you a witch?”
“My family,” I told her. “I’m very lucky.”
“I’m so sorry for…before.”
“You don’t need to be sorry, just vigilant,” I warned her. “And make sure you cleanse your space after every séance.”
She took a quick breath. “I don’t think I’m going to have any more of those.”
“But you could. Just perhaps not here,” I suggested. “Maybe have a back room at the store. Keep your house clear.”
Glancing around, she smiled. “No more shadows.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t remember this hallway ever being this bright.”
“It feels warm too.”
She nodded. “It certainly does.”
“Hey,” Lorne called out from the back door.
I waved.
“It’s done, right? I’m only asking because it doesn’t look or feel like anything’s moving anymore.”
“You’re correct,” I assured him. “How’s the backyard?”
“Come see.”
Rushing down the hall, I popped out onto a small cement area with five stairs on three sides, all leading to a cement walkway that wound around an outdoor entertainment area, complete with a pool, hot tub, enormous patio filled with furniture, and a barbecue. The overgrown garden Lorne had mentioned was nowhere in sight. What remained were husks of trees and lots of dead, dried vegetation.
“Oh my God,” Lynette gasped behind me, walking out and around me, hand over her mouth, eyes wide, turning in every direction.
There were floodlights on, and there were lights farther out on a small footbridge that led to the edge of the property overlooking downtown Osprey. It was a lovely night, and the stars were out, the sky gorgeous in layers of indigo, navy, cerulean, and lapis.
“How did you…” she began but stopped herself. “The garden was full of something wasting away, wasn’t it?”
“Is that how it felt to you?”
She nodded.
“I think perhaps you need to get some landscapers out here and make the front and back match. The backyard is for you to enjoy, and it should be as beautiful as what the neighbors see.”
“Yes, it should,” she agreed. “Would it be all right if we talked? Maybe get your help with some wards for the house?”
I smiled. “Of course.”
“You should start by getting rid of that welcome mat at the front door,” Lorne told her. “Never know what you’re inviting inside with that.”
She turned to me.
“He’s not wrong.”
Slowly, she looked back at him.
“I take my oath to protect and serve seriously,” he assured her. “On all levels.”
She only nodded.