Chapter Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Seven
Cassie knew that Sophie was determined to get things right when it came to the ghost tour, but she hadn’t expected her to show up that next Monday afternoon with a bag of Chinese takeout.
Cassie blinked dumbly at the food. “We have a Chinese place here?”
“They keep it quiet,” Sophie said with a smile. “They’re over behind Eternal Rest, and are only open three days a week right now. Even less during the offseason.”
“That’s…that’s pretty quiet,” Cassie agreed.
Sophie hoisted the bag. “I was hoping to bribe you with chicken lo mein to see that research on your house.”
Cassie opened the door wide. “Come on in.”
They made short work of the lo mein as Cassie took Sophie on a little tour of her own, narrating the photos that were still lined up on her coffee table. “Maybe you can help me,” she said. “There’s something here, and I’m just not seeing it. I think I’ve been looking at these pictures too long.”
“Is this them?” Sophie picked up the wedding photo, studying Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins. “He looks kinda mean, doesn’t he?”
“He does…” Cassie trailed off as another mental puzzle piece clicked into place. Mean . My man bad. Good Lord. She’d been so excited about the family tree discovery that she’d forgotten the other, very important thing that Sarah had told her.
“Sarah.” Cassie kept her eyes on the wedding photo as she raised her voice, directing it toward the kitchen. “Did your husband ever hurt you? Is that how he was bad?” She knew the answer to this question already, but damn did she want to be wrong. She steeled herself before going into the kitchen to look at the fridge.
yes
“Wow.” Sophie’s eyes were huge behind her glasses. “That still gives me the shivers, her moving the words around like that. Do you ever get used to it?”
“Trying to,” Cassie said absently, more focused on Sarah’s answer and what it meant. She glanced down at the photo in her hand, then back up at the fridge, and the message had already changed.
husband want baby
no
man bad
“He…he wanted kids, and when they didn’t come he got angry?” Cassie blinked hard against sudden tears. Go back a hundred years or so and that could have been her. With a husband who thought she was useless because she couldn’t have children. But it wasn’t her fault, any more than it was Sarah’s.
little pain
more control
Cassie nodded. “So it wasn’t so much that he hit you as he was a controlling douchebag. Got it.”
“You really should have that as one of the words she can use.” Sophie stepped closer to examine the words on the fridge.
But Cassie had more questions to ask. “Did you ever hurt him?” That was the big question, and both she and Sophie held their breath. They couldn’t see the words move, but suddenly just one word was in the middle of the fridge.
no
Cassie exhaled a huge sigh. She wasn’t roommates with a murderer. She could work with that. “But people thought you did.”
people wrong
“Yeah, I get that now.” Sophie looked around the kitchen, as though she could spot Sarah by the table and address her face-to-face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. We’re going to get it right now, I promise.”
“We are.” Cassie wasn’t sure if she was reassuring Sophie or Sarah. “We’re trying to get to the bottom of everything. I want to get your side of the story. I know it’s hard, since you only have so many words to work with.”
The words on the fridge may have provided a limited vocabulary, but Sarah had a lot to say.
husband control
after death free
but not
“Okay, so I was right about your husband being controlling. After he died you felt…free?”
Sophie nodded. “I mean, that’s a little dark, but fair.”
“Yeah, but…‘but not’? What does that part mean? Free but not free?” Cassie turned to Sophie, who shrugged.
“Plenty of reasons, I’d think. It’s not like women had tons of autonomy back then. She was a product of the nineteenth century, right? It’s not like she could go out and get a job. If she was an independent woman back then…Maybe that’s what she was being judged for?”
“Maybe?” But that didn’t seem right. Cassie paced the downstairs, from the kitchen to the living room and back again, while she thought. Sure, it had taken some time to get used to all this ghost stuff, but now that she had, Sarah wasn’t threatening. She wasn’t mean. She was kind. She was lonely. She liked watching garbage television.
Cassie was having a hard time reconciling all that with the story of Mean Mrs. Hawkins chasing kids away from her house. Why would you want to keep innocent—or not-so-innocent—kids away? Why not put up a NO TRESPASSING sign if you wanted people out?
Thoughts of signs were still in her head when she slowed in front of the coffee table, lingering in front of the photos of the house that were lined up in chronological order. She sat down on the couch in front of them, imagining where she’d hang a NO TRESPASSING sign. Maybe on the gate itself? No, there were too many roses; the sign would get lost.
Except there weren’t too many roses. Not always. Cassie picked up the first photo, the earliest one, taken when the house was newly constructed. Roses bloomed along the fence line, and now that she looked at the photo more closely, there was a white out-of-focus smudge in the background that was vaguely woman shaped. Was that Sarah, working in her garden?
Cassie followed the progression of the cabbage roses as she examined the photos in order. Lush rosebushes in full bloom suddenly disappeared. Three of the photos had no roses at all. What those photos did have was C.S. Hawkins. Standing in front of this little seaside cottage like he was lord of some great manor.
“Not a fan of roses, this guy,” she murmured.
“Cassie!” Sophie called from the kitchen. “She’s doing it again! The words changed. It says ‘roses useless.’ Does that mean anything?”
“Yeah.” Cassie returned to the kitchen, photos in hand. “See, look at these pictures. She had roses in her garden before, but while she was married—while C.S. was around—they were gone.”
“Because he said they were useless?” Sophie frowned, looking at the photos. “Flowers are there to be pretty. They’re not supposed to have a function.”
But more puzzle pieces started to rotate in Cassie’s head. So close now, just out of reach. “Sarah’s attention was on her garden, on the things that made her happy. And not on her husband. Not on giving him a family.”
Sophie sucked in a breath, and Cassie looked at her, then to the fridge. The words had changed again.
get him out
Those words again. The first time Sarah had used that phrase had been that day that Nick was there. He’d stood in her kitchen, his eyes flashing dark and almost frightening, saying the most awful things before she’d kicked him out. How her own interests should be irrelevant compared to a husband and family. Outdated, misogynistic thinking; it had all been so unlike Nick. But it was right in line with the opinion of a man from the early nineteen hundreds.
A man who wanted to control his wife.
A man who thought a woman’s main purpose was providing children.
A man with dark brown eyes.
get him out
Sarah had never been talking about Nick.
She was talking about C.S. Hawkins.
When he’d died, Sarah said she was free, but not.
Because he’d stuck around too. His spirit was bullying her, and anyone else who might come around her home.
So she’d kept everyone away. Even the neighborhood children, who might get too close. For decades she’d borne the brunt of his temper. Alone.
Well, not anymore. Not if Cassie could help it.
“You’re right,” she said to her refrigerator. “We need to get him out. But we’re gonna need some help first.”
“Get who out?” Sophie asked, but Cassie had already scooped up her phone. She punched up Libby’s number and waited impatiently for her to answer.
“Libby? Can a house have more than one ghost in it?”
“Sure it can.” Libby had obviously been doing this for too long to let a question like this faze her. “Whole families can linger behind together.”
Cassie turned back toward the kitchen, where Sophie watched her with wide, slightly confused eyes.
get him out was still displayed on the fridge. Working on it, Sarah. “Do you think Nan could come over? I think she missed a spot.”
···
Nan’s tracksuit was pink this time, practically glowing in the late-afternoon sun when she and Libby arrived on Cassie’s front porch. The first thing the elderly woman did when she walked inside was look around Cassie’s freshly painted living room with an appraising eye.
“Nice colors,” she said. She looked around again. “Don’t see any cabbage roses, though. Didn’t she say she missed the roses?”
“She did,” Cassie confirmed. “But given the choice she said she’d rather have the color of the wallpaper than the actual wallpaper itself.”
“She said…” Nan’s voice trailed off, mystified, but then she caught sight of the refrigerator and that seemed to jog her memory. “Right,” she said. “You and Sarah have been using your words, huh? Very good.” She headed toward the kitchen, with Cassie, Sophie, and Libby trailing after her like ducklings.
Nan examined the fridge, which still said get him out . “Not exactly subtle, is it?”
“Nope.” Cassie took a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure there’s a second ghost in this house. C.S. Hawkins? I think he stuck around too.” She watched Nan’s face carefully. Cassie sure wasn’t the ghost expert in the room—hell, she wasn’t even the second-best expert in the room. Or the third. Was she ghost-splaining here?
“Really?” If Nan was offended by the implication that she’d missed something the first time around, she didn’t show it. Instead she walked slowly back out to the living room, turning in a circle. It was the same thing she’d done the first time, when she was getting a feel of the place. Was she seeing something different this time around?
Apparently she was. She stopped short in the center of the living room and took a sharp breath. “Oh, there you are. Where the hell have you been?” She fell silent then, her eyes closed, concentrating. “Hiding behind your wife, I bet. Typical.” Her voice was little more than a murmur, and she seemed to shrink into herself the longer she stood. Cassie wanted to take her arm, wanted to offer her a chair, but she was pretty sure that touching a medium at this point in the proceedings was a no-no. She hazarded a glance over at Libby, who was worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, her eyes fixed on her grandmother. She looked concerned, but no more than anyone would over the well-being of your average octogenarian. That made Cassie feel better, the way that bored-looking flight attendants made her feel calm when the plane hit turbulence. Libby knew what was going on, and she wasn’t alarmed.
“Damn.” Nan’s voice was stronger now, rougher. “He really doesn’t like you.” Her eyes opened, focused on Cassie.
Cassie blinked. Was that something she should be concerned about? “Uh. Sorry?”
“Work.” Nan practically spit the word as she shook off the remainder of whatever trance she’d been under. “He doesn’t like that you work. Not just you. Women in general. Says he tried to stop you, stop your machine.”
“My machine…” Cassie repeated, then the light bulb came on in her head as another puzzle piece slid into place. “He keeps my laptop from charging.” Then she sucked in a breath as the mental light bulb surged suddenly brighter. “Only when I plug it in. Because I’m a woman.”
Sophie made a tsk sound with her tongue. “What a misogynist.”
“No shit.” Libby folded her arms on her chest. “Fuck that guy.”
“Language, Liberty.” Nan cut her eyes to her granddaughter. Libby looked chastened, though she rolled her eyes in Cassie’s direction when Nan wasn’t looking.
“Yeah,” Nan said dismissively, walking back to the kitchen with a purpose this time, plunking her shoulder bag on the kitchen table. “He’s gotta go.”
“He does?” A surge of relief swept through Cassie. Imagine being able to plug in her laptop and having it work. Imagine being able to kiss Nick in her kitchen anytime she wanted. Cassie could imagine a lot of other things she’d like to do with Nick in her kitchen. But she forced her brain back on topic as one thing bothered her. “I thought you said you don’t like to banish spirits. That it was okay for them to stick around.”
“Not if they’re assholes.” Nan said the words slowly, as though explaining to a toddler. “And this one’s an asshole. Therefore, he’s gotta go.” She started rummaging through her impossibly large bag, pulling out a few things: a Costco-size container of salt, a water pistol for some reason, a child’s plastic bucket capped with a lid, a fistful of white taper candles still wrapped in plastic. “Libby, get the poker out of the car.”
Now Libby was all business; not an eyeroll to be seen. “Yes, ma’am.”
“So what…what is all this stuff?”
Nan laid a hand on the water pistol. “Holy water. Salt, obviously. Sand. The candles are for protective energy. The poker is made of iron; some spirits react to iron, so it’s always good to have it around.”
“Right.” Cassie nodded dumbly. “So this is…”
“An exorcism,” Nan answered, as though it were the kind of thing she did every day of the week. Which, considering her line of work, she probably did. “We’re getting rid of Mr. Hawkins.”
Nan paused in her preparations and cocked her head, as though she were listening to something. Or someone. “He wants to know where your man is,” she said. “He says your man should put you in your place.” She sounded disgusted. “This guy. Real piece of work.” She pulled a pocketknife out of her bag and started peeling the plastic off the candles.
“My man?” But Cassie knew right away. Nick. The relief that swept through her made her sway on her feet, chasing away any lingering doubts about him. He’d been right after all. The way he acted, those things he said…he’d said it wasn’t him, and he was right. It was all C.S. Hawkins.
“He tried to tell you,” Nan said. “He came close once, when…” Her voice trailed off, lost in thought. “When the boy was here. The boy is weak. He needed to get you under control.”
Sophie let out a nervous giggle. “Mr. Hawkins doesn’t know Nick that well, then. That’s not like him at all.”
“Nick, huh?” Nan looked up. “The coffee shop boy?” The front door opened, and Libby brought a fireplace poker inside, laying it on the table next to the rest of Nan’s supplies.
“What about Nick?” Libby asked.
“Go get him too.” Nan made a shooing motion toward the door.
“No!” Cassie called out, but the front door was already banging shut behind Libby again. She turned to Nan. “You don’t need him for this.” Her voice shook; all she could remember was when Nick’s eyes changed. Those dark brown, angry eyes that didn’t belong in his face. She didn’t like seeing him that way. Mr. Hawkins’s problem was with her, not Nick. There was no need to put him through this.
But Nan shook her head. “He keeps saying he wants to talk to your man. Again. That means he’s talked to him before. If we’re going to get rid of him, we need to bring him to the surface. I think your boy there might be the key.” She ripped the plastic off the last candle, then started taking out small candleholders. She handed them all to Cassie. “Your living room is the biggest room in the house, we’ll set up in there. Start with the candles—one at each compass point. Then you girls can move the furniture out of the center of the room. We need space to work.”
Cassie decided not to argue. This was her very first exorcism, after all. At this point, all she could do was watch and follow directions. And trust that Nan would keep them safe.
Keep them all safe.