The Broom #3
“Were you a witch?” Taran asked.
“Yes, I was a witch, a real one,” she answered.
“How long have you been here?” Eilonwy asked.
“I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours.”
Taran waited for Eilonwy to answer the question.
“Dad isn’t coming back,” she finally said.
“Where is he?”
“You know where he is, you just don’t want to remember, yet.”
“I do want to remember,” Taran said and rubbed his head.
Eilonwy and Haley waited.
Taran rose to his feet; he was calm but clearly experiencing something.
“Ric was yelling at Dad in his greenhouse. You, me, and Wren were watching from the first floor. Aunt Janelle was dead in her bedroom, then Dad came back inside. He was screaming at me to pack a bag. I told him no. I told him I knew he had poisoned Mom and Janelle, and I would never forgive him. Then he struck me. You hit him with a spell and slammed him into the wall. Wren was screaming. Ric attacked Dad and was strangling him with a hex. I tried to get them apart. Then I don’t remember anything.
I just know everyone was crying and yelling and throwing magick. ”
“And nothing else?” Eilonwy asked.
“No. I thought…you put a forget spell on me, to protect me from knowing.”
Eilonwy got up and put her hand on Taran’s chest. “I would never do that to you. It was Ric. He tried to put one on all of us, but it didn’t work on me. Wren is beginning to remember.”
“Is that why she’s barely eating?” Taran said.
“I don’t know, and we have to tell her soon.
I was just waiting for you to remember first, I can’t…
” Eilonwy started to say she couldn’t deal with everything by herself, especially now that Ric was having a mental breakdown from grief.
She stopped herself so she wouldn’t cry.
They needed to deal with the ghost first.
Taran seemed to sense this and hugged her, then asked the ghost, “Tell us your story, Haley.”
“Sit down first, you’re making me dizzy.”
Eilonwy and Taran both sat.
“I was alive for twenty-one years, and I’ve been dead for twenty.
The short story is that I was a dumb witch girl who fell in love with an idiot goth boy, and when things didn’t go his way, he went all spooky and killed me.
Then he tried to reanimate me so I’d do his sexy bidding. I’ll spare you the details on that.”
“Was he a wizard, or a necromancer?” Eilonwy asked.
“No, and he wasn’t a witch either. He was a poseur who thought worshipping dark gods would grant him anything he desired.”
“Which dark gods?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, you’re describing a binding, and there are several ways to break those, but it depends on the type of magick and the objects involved.”
“He said he was a vampiric druid, he talked a lot about demon knowledge, and he had rare books he was obsessed with.”
“A vampiric druid?” Taran repeated. “That seems antithetical.”
“I’ve never heard of one. Did he have any powers that seemed to work?” Eilonwy asked.
Haley sighed. “I didn’t think so until he killed me.”
“And made you a ghost?”
“He didn’t make me a ghost. I refused to cross over. I wanted revenge.”
“No offense, but you don’t sound vengeful,” Taran observed.
“It’s hard to keep that kind of energy up,” she said.
“I imagine it would be,” Eilonwy said, knowing exactly how hard it was.
“Besides, I tried to get revenge, and I failed. Now one of my friends is probably dead.”
“Tell us about that,” Taran said.
“Her name is Carey. She worked at the sandwich shop that was here last year. She knew me in real life, and I did everything I could to talk to her. I finally used the broom and mirror you saw upstairs.”
“How?” Eilonwy asked.
“Items that belonged to a ghost in real life can be anointed with candle wax and used for communication. I worked here in ’95, when it was a used bookstore.
I would sweep the floor at the end of the night, and that mirror was by the front counter so we could see if the customers were hiding something while at the register.
I actually bespelled it to alert me if someone was shoplifting. ”
“How would that work?” Taran asked.
“It would just sparkle a little. The frame is silver with little red crystals. I used to make them out of thrift store frames and mirrors, then sell them at the craft fairs. I only enchanted a few for friends.”
“How long did you work here?”
“About a year.”
“You were saying Carey was trying to help you,” Eilonwy urged, trying to get the ghost back on track.
“Yes, she was talking to me through the mirror. It took a little work, but she figured out how to make it into a spirit-scrying device—she’s a witch, too.
Anyway, I told her my story, and she told me he had a store down the street.
I was furious! That asshole killed me and tried to bind me to him, but I turned on him.
He comes in here whenever a new business opens, and I always try to smack him in the head with my broom! ”
“Why would he sell the store? Was he unable to banish you?” Taran asked.
“He didn’t own it, he was leasing.”
“Do you know who owned it? We heard that she went missing in ’94.”
“She was his first victim. I didn’t know it until I died, but I was the second. Carey thinks he does this every year, because there’s a list of women who disappeared on State Street, one each year around Halloween. The same day I died.”
“That sounds familiar,” Taran said.
Eilonwy felt her temper begin to rise. Madison was the only city she had ever lived in.
She and her friends were afraid of the unknown person who was killing local and out-of-town college women.
They called whoever it was the Trick-or-Treat Killer and the Samhain Snatcher.
They were all fed up with the local police not taking the missing women seriously.
They said the women either ran off or that these were unrelated kidnappings, just because bodies were never found.
“Haley, what is his full name?” Eilonwy asked.
“Dante Valentine,” she replied.
“Of Valentine’s Used and Rare Books,” Eilonwy said.
“Yes, have you been inside?”
“I have. The owner is tall, has long dark hair and dark eyes, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been in that shop twice, and he tried to hit on me both times. He’s smarmy and smells like incense. I despise incense,” Eilonwy said.
“I loved that smell. It’s the first thing that attracted me to him.
I went into the bookstore that was here, and he had a few witch items like candles, incense, and tarot cards.
He was impressed with my knowledge and hired me as a clerk.
I resisted him for a few months, but then he…
Well, it doesn’t matter now. Can we get back to Carey? ”
“Yes, sorry, please continue,” Eilonwy said.
“Okay, so Carey went over to do some reconnaissance, and she never came back. Then Dante showed up here and waited until he knew I was listening. He thanked me for sending her to him. I was so angry I smacked him with the broom and chased him out of the store. I haven’t heard from either of them since. I’m worried she’s dead.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone?” Taran asked.
“I did try, but every time I did, the store closed because people are scared of me.”
“When did she go over?” Eilonwy asked.
“What day is it now?”
“June 6, 2015.”
“I thought it had only been a month, but it’s been nearly four. Time is weird when you’re a ghost. She must be dead, or worse. Damn it! I’m so stupid, I never should have let her go!”
It was quiet for an awkward minute, only the radio crackling softly with her crying.
“Haley, is there a room upstairs behind the closet?” Taran asked when the crackling stopped.
“Yes. It’s where he left my body. It’s actually pretty comfy.”
“How so?” Eilonwy asked.
“I don’t know, it just feels restful and comfortable when I’m in there. It’s probably why I can’t tell how much time has passed from day to day.”
Taran and Eilonwy exchanged a look, one that said they both had ideas.
“What do you want us to do?” Taran asked.
“Could you please find Carey? Without becoming one of his victims.”
Eilonwy nodded. “We can do that, but I want to speak to Taran about this outside, privately.”
The siblings stood on the sidewalk near the side exit and looked down the street toward Valentine’s bookstore.
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
“I want to help her, without involving authorities if we can, but I’m worried she might be lying.”
“Because this has been too easy?”
“Yes. That mirror bothers me, and I want to know what’s up with that hidden room. We have to be careful that she’s not some kind of lure.”
“For a demon?”
“Or something else. I’ve heard of vampires using ghosts to beckon would-be paranormal investigators into their lairs.”
“Do you think she’s trying to take one of us so she can get revenge herself?”
“It’s a possibility, and I like to cover all the possibilities.”
“Could he actually be a vampire?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“I say we look in the room and see if we can find out more about him and her.”
“That’s a good plan. I want to check that mirror, too. We might be able to use it to see inside the bookstore.”
Eilonwy brought the radio upstairs for Haley to use.
Taran examined the back of the closet, running his fingers along the edges. “This is one piece of wood, about an inch thick. Do you know how this opens?”
“No, I’ve never had to, I just drift through,” Haley said through the static.
“What’s on the other side?” Taran asked.
“A bed, a bunch of his books, some of my things, mostly stuff he gave me, my body, and jars.”
“Jars?” Eilonwy asked.
“Of my blood. He bled me when I was dying.”
“Haley, I don’t want to be insensitive, but how did he kill you?” Taran asked.
The radio crackled for a long moment.
“I don’t like to think about it.”
“It could help us?”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Haley said, then her mist rose out of the radio and zipped through the wall.
“She seems upset. Maybe we should leave her alone and check the mirror first,” Taran said.