Chapter 26
The next morning, the four of us surround a table at Carbs with Holes.
I grip my large Caffie in both hands like it’s a life preserver.
Matt pokes the satchel with the handle of his plastic knife. “Witches.” He shakes his head like he knows them and is disappointed in their choices.
“Possibly,” Arden clarifies. “For all we know, this is part of a perfectly harmless cleansing ritual.”
“I’ve never heard of a cleansing involving human remains,” I mutter.
Not that I know a ton about witchcraft. The little bit of internet browsing I did last night was endlessly interrupted by my mother wanting to know why I was having a sleepover with her in the living room, and then being so excited when I said I missed her that she couldn’t stop talking.
Arden purses their lips. “Fair point.”
“Plus, that wouldn’t explain how the dolls got up there.” I shudder. I’m afraid I will never be able to look at my Great Women of History after this.
Matt sighs. “I can’t believe you didn’t record that shit.”
“I don’t walk around with my phone on waiting for stuff to happen.” I take a long pull of my coffee.
Matt takes a giant bite of his bagel with cream cheese. “You live in a haunted house,” he says around his mouthful. “I’d have GoPros everywhere.”
I’m about to point out that I wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that the house was actually haunted until last night, but then Loretta pushes through the front door.
Matt and Theo wave at her. She waves back, then grabs her to-go order from the rack by the counter. Theo thought it was worth chatting with her since she’s been investigating the strange occurrences around Harlow’s Rest for a lot longer than he and Matt have.
“An unconventional spot for a historical society meeting,” she jokes as she fills the last open chair. She smiles at Arden and then me. “And our membership has grown.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “You were cryptic in your email, Theo. So tell me what this is about.”
Theo pushes the satchel on the table toward Loretta. “Amity found this in her house last night.” He watches the librarian as she picks it up and inspects it. “We don’t know what it is, but it has to be connected to Mercy Harlow, right? I mean, it was behind a portrait of her.”
“And all her minions came running toward it,” Matt adds.
Theo glances at him in exasperation. I think he was planning to ease into the part about the dolls.
Loretta is still studying the satchel. Her face is placid, but her eyes are laser-focused behind her glasses, so it’s hard to tell what she’s thinking.
“The portrait had been completely stuck to the wall,” I explain. “But last night it basically fell off when I touched it.” No need to expound on how I was trying to take out my anger and frustrations on it.
Nodding, Loretta smooths out a napkin onto the table and then empties the contents of the leather pouch.
She takes one look at the bone, hair, and tooth wrapped together in string and says, “This is a part of a binding spell.” Running her palms over her tan slacks, she slowly shakes her head.
“I knew she had that book, but I didn’t think Mercy was actually dabbling in witchcraft.
” It sounds like she’s talking to herself more than to us.
I scoot my chair a little closer to Loretta. I can feel the weight of Theo’s eyes on my face, but I focus on the librarian. “What does a binding spell do?”
“It tethers someone to a place, a person, or an object,” Loretta explains.
“Why would Mercy want to bind herself to that house?”
“Maybe she felt guilty for killing her family, and it was a kind of penance?” Theo suggests.
Arden tears a piece of their croissant off and folds it into their mouth. “You really think it wasn’t TB?”
Exhaling through his nose, Theo eases back into his seat. “I’d been pretty convinced that that old well in the woods corrupted Mercy. But then Amity found these other pages from Mercy’s diary in her basement—”
Loretta lets out something like a squawk. “What? When? Where are they now?” Her dark eyes home in on Theo. “Please tell me you gave them to the archival department at the college.”
I wince. “I’ve put them in plastic protectors.”
Loretta gives me the same look my mother does when I’m exhausting her. “You’re not an archivist yet.”
“I’m the one who told her to hold on to them,” Theo says.
“But I didn’t fight him,” I add. “We wanted to make sure we found everything we could in them before we lost access while they’re processed and stuff.”
“Please bring them with you to the library for your shift tomorrow,” Loretta instructs me.
I nod reluctantly. I know they’re probably safer with her, but it was so cool to be in possession of something so old. A little slice of history.
Arden’s gaze bounces back and forth between us before landing on Theo. “Okay, but what did the diary pages say that changed your mind?”
He leans across the table. “They keep mentioning this book that Mercy got from an old lady on market day. She talks about reading from it, both her and Harmony, and things happening.” His voice is low and conspiratorial.
“There was this whole thing about her brother’s teeth falling out when she wished for him to stop eating her candy.” I grimace. Poor Levi.
Theo licks his lips. His eyes have that wide look of excitement he only gets when talking about Mercy and the Homestead.
“So now we’re thinking that they messed with the wrong spell or released whatever was in the well or Mercy cursed herself by accident.
But whatever she and Harmony did, the result was Mercy accidentally killing her family.
” Our eyes catch. The way he’s looking at me, it’s like I’m part of this now.
Like this new theory is ours, not his alone.
His foot hooks the leg of my chair and drags me toward him.
I was afraid that after telling him how slow I want to go, he’d stop touching me. Treat me like a grenade with the trigger pulled. But he’s still holding my hand, and kissing me, and making sure we’re as close together as we can be at all times.
I’m the one that keeps pulling away. I don’t know how to stop. How to trust that everything between us really is okay.
I stare at the satchel and its contents on the table. “I hate to be the one to ask this, but…if Mercy was trying to bind herself to the house, would all that”—I sweep a hand over the bundle of hair, bone, and tooth—“have to come from Mercy herself?”
Loretta nods. “Without question. The physical remains are the anchor.”
“So she had to, like, pull out one of her own teeth and cut off a finger to do this?” I cringe.
Again, something in my chest aches for Mercy. Whatever the reason she did the spell, she had to have been desperate. And deeply lonely. And so sad. Maybe, by then, Harmony was being kept from her completely. We don’t have the rest of her diary, so there’s no way to ever know.
“Is there a way to break the spell?” Theo asks.
Loretta pulls her glasses from her face and wipes the lenses with the hem of her blouse. “The soul needs to be untethered from what it’s bound to.”
Matt tilts forward on his elbows. “How?”
Loretta shakes her head. “The spirit would need to manifest itself, and then the anchor must be destroyed.”
“Manifest how?” Arden’s eyes are wide.
“Cross the veil,” Loretta says. “Make herself known to us.”
“So like a séance?” I can’t believe this is a serious question coming out of my mouth.
“That’s the most direct way.” Loretta’s spine straightens, and she eyes us all like a suspicious parent. “Don’t you kids go getting any ideas. Messing with spirits, inviting them to engage with you, it’s dangerous.” Her gaze settles on Theo. “Did Matthew say something about minions moving?”
Theo nods. “There were crochet dolls scattered through the whole house. They seemed to be heading for that portrait of Mercy.”
“Not that we actually saw them running or anything,” I point out.
“They were just…not where they belonged. And a couple of them…” I shake my head.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this since last night.
The dolls upstairs and the ones that were destroyed, I can’t help but think they’re not part of the same… I don’t know…phenomenon.
“What?” Theo urges me on.
“Could there be two ghosts?” I wring my hands in my lap.
Maybe Theo’s right and it’s time to get me a tinfoil hat, but I can’t make the two instances align in my head.
“The dolls upstairs felt like they were trying to tell us something. But the ones in the den, they’d been torn apart.
And there was this shadow…” I chew on my lip for a second. “It felt…I don’t know…violent.”
“It’s August next week,” Loretta points out.
Theo nods. “Mercy returned home from the well on August second,” he reminds me.
“That might explain the change in energy, then.” Loretta plunks down her empty coffee on the table. “There’s a good chance that Mercy grows stronger the closer we get to that week. The veil often weakens around death anniversaries.”
I think of the construction notes we read, how more and more went wrong the closer they got to August. Then of all the other tragedies that happened in my house, all around my birthday.
I glance at Theo. “If you believe the stories of the other people who have tried to live in my house, this is about the time that everything goes haywire.”
“Shit.” Matt claws through his short red hair, making it stand on end. “Jesse almost got cut in two. And the porch basically collapsed under you guys.”
“You’re all proving my point here.” Loretta sets her hands on the table.
Her fingers are loaded up with cool-looking rings full of gems and symbols.
“Leave Mercy alone. I think the best thing you can do is get out of the house for the next week, and let the anniversary pass. Her presence should dim after that.”
“Until next year,” I mutter.
Loretta’s expression is sympathetic. “There’s a reason that house is always on the market.” Clearing her throat, she glances at the four of us again. “I need you kids to promise me that you are not going to try to contact this spirit.”
My eyes lock with Theo’s as we mumble agreement. It’s clear from his expression how much he hates making this promise.
I, however, am happy to oblige. I have no interest in learning that séances are as real as ghosts.