Chapter 6
She needed to be careful; she didn’t want her unwanted spirit to get wind that she was trying to banish her.
Procuring the items she would need was going to take some cunning usage of the camera’s blind spots—should tonight’s footage ever be played back, she’d rather there not be evidence of her gathering things for an exorcism.
She borrowed a Himalayan salt lamp from the well-being section on the ground floor, along with a large bag of natural bath salts—salt was apparently good protection against negative forces.
She set the lamp up in the office and shook one line of bath salts in the doorway and another—with the finesse of a cat burglar if she did say so herself—at the entrance and exits of the furniture department.
Thankfully Margo was engaged in folding herself into the shape of a kanelsnurrer pastry and didn’t notice Casey’s errands.
Next, she gathered as many examples of amethyst as she could find in the small jewelry section on the first-floor clothes department because her internet searches had informed her that amethyst was a spiritual cleanser and she had a store in need of being cleansed of a spirit.
These items she laid and hung at various points around the place, keeping a small chunk of raw amethyst rock crystal for the office.
Finally, after foraging two bouquet garnis from the staff canteen and a sage candle from the food hall, she was ready.
Burning the sage in the herb bundles was going to be a careful job; the last thing she needed was to set off the fire alarms and have the fire brigade turning up.
She opened the skylight in the office and placed the sage in a deep metal mixing bowl—from homeware—on a table beneath it, then angled the desk fan so that it would whisk the smoke up and out the window.
The stage was set. Casey took a long, deep breath.
She didn’t have anything against Margo. She wished her no harm; she simply needed her gone.
Her life was complicated enough without having to deal with spirits in the workplace, even ones that made excellent coffee.
She hoped Margo would understand that it was nothing personal.
As the spirit laid herself out in the corpse pose, Casey lit the match and dropped it onto the sage.
The lights in the office flickered, and all the screens became a snowstorm crackling with white noise. Then came the shouting. Casey wished she’d used the toilet before barricading herself in the office with the line of bath salts.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Margo screeched. Camera 6 snapped back to life, the screen filled with Margo’s face, her expression apoplectic. “Are you seriously trying to banish me?”
Casey gulped. “It’s nothing personal,” she said to the camera.
“Nothing personal?” Margo shouted so loudly that the light fittings shook. “It feels pretty bloody personal from here!”
“I have a job to do, a commitment to my employers…” She was aware that she didn’t sound convincing; confrontation had never been her strong suit.
“Well, I’ve got news for you,” Margo snapped.
“Your little charms only banish negative energy and, as anyone can tell you, I am a ray of goddamn sunshine. I bring the party! I am literally positivity in-fucking-carnate!” With that she stormed toward the exit, only to be bounced backward when she got there by Casey’s bath salt line. “What the?”
Casey swallowed. “The thing is, Margo, you aren’t a very positive spirit at the moment. You said it yourself—you’ve lost your mojo. You are, in fact, negative energy.”
Margo clutched at her heart like she’d been stabbed. Casey felt horribly guilty to look at her. She was beginning to fade out of focus.
“Please!” Margo implored her. She blipped out of existence for a moment and then blipped back in with her face close up to the camera again. “Please let me stay. I need this. Don’t make me go back. I’ll do anything…”
Anything? An idea flitted across Casey’s mind. “Anything?” she asked.
Margo frowned for a moment, considering, and then said, “Almost anything. Anything that is within my power and that isn’t detrimental to mankind.”
Would her request be detrimental to anyone else?
Maybe Sam wouldn’t be a celebrity anymore, but other than that…
Casey chose her next words carefully. She knew how these things worked; the devil was always in the details.
“I’ll let you stay here if you make my meme disappear; make it so that it never existed at all. ”
Margo eyed her suspiciously. “That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
Margo looked thoughtful. “Are you sure you want to rewrite an entire chunk of your life?”
Was she? She thought of all the hurt the meme had caused her. She couldn’t think of a single good thing that had come of it. “Yes,” she said. “I’m sure.”
Margo gave her a steely look. “There are boxes which will need to be ticked before I can sign off on such a request; you must agree to follow the safety protocols that I set out for you…”
“Fine, yes, whatever,” Casey clipped, “just make it happen.” She wanted to get this thing wrapped up before she lost her chance or her courage; if she waited much longer, she might overthink herself out of it.
Margo breathed out heavily through her nose, her lips pursed.
“All right, then. As with most contracts, there’ll be a cooling-off period; the meme will remain until you’ve had time—with my guidance—to fully consider the ramifications.
But if you allow me to hide out here until Christmas night, and if by then you are still set on this course of action, then I will make your meme disappear from existence. ”
Casey could hardly believe it. If this was a fever dream, she didn’t want to wake up from it. “Really? You can actually do that?”
“Of course I can. If that’s what you really want.”
“I do. It is. I’m not going to change my mind.
You’ve got yourself a deal.” She laughed with the sheer relief that this nightmare would soon be over and poured a glass of water over the burning herbs in the bowl.
As the smoke dissipated, the lights in the office stopped flickering and all the other cameras snapped back into clear pictures of the lamplit store.
She felt lighter already. For the first time in nearly three years, she could see an end to her situation.
The meme would be gone. She would be free.
“Smashing,” said Margo, sounding unimpressed. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind clearing away the salt so that I can leave the furniture department, we can shake on it and make this deal official.” She was hovering by the exit like a rodeo horse at the gate.
“Oh, right. Yes, of course. Um, you’re not angry, are you?”
“No. I admire your pluck. Of course, all that could change if you keep me trapped here for too long…”
Casey jumped to it and set about returning all the items she’d borrowed, leaving IOUs for the bath salts and bouquet garnis while she was at it. With Margo now free to roam, she appeared outside of the food hall and held out her hand for Casey to shake.
“Oh, we’re actually shaking on it,” said Casey.
“If you want it to be binding, then yes,” Margo replied. She pinned Casey with her bright green eyes. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” she said. “That is what I want.” Christmas night couldn’t come soon enough.
Margo raised her eyebrows and held out her hand. Casey hesitated and then followed suit. “On your own head be it!” Margo said as their palms met.
“Wait! What?” Casey asked, but it was too late.
There was a flash of something like lightning, and she felt a searing heat streak through her palm.
She tried to pull away, but Margo’s grip was viselike.
In another second it was all over, bar the stars left in her vison by the flash and a dull ache in her hand, which she shook to ease out the pins and needles.
For a moment, she doubted herself, wondered if she should have taken more time, but chances like this didn’t happen every day.
She’d be a fool not to take it and besides, Margo had said there was a cooling-off period, so she had nothing to lose.
“I need to decompress,” said Margo, touching her palm to her forehead. “I’ll be in the book department. You humans are exhausting. It’s all want, want, want.”
“You don’t like people much, do you?”
“On the contrary, I love people!” Margo began waving her arms about.
“That’s why it hurts so much when they insist upon behaving like dickheads.
Humanity has such a huge capacity for greatness, vast stockpiles of love and empathy waiting to be unleashed, and yet you piss your souls up the wall like drunks at closing time on a Saturday night. ”
“Are you talking about me? Did I just piss my soul up the wall?” A wave of panic washed over her. But Margo had already disappeared, leaving Casey to wonder if making a deal with a Christmas spirit was such a good idea after all.
When she finally got down to work, she went back over the wording of the deal in her mind.
There’d been no mention of her soul, so she had to assume she hadn’t sold it, and anyway didn’t you have to sign in blood or something for that?
Maybe Margo wasn’t talking about her at all but rather a generalized soul pissing.
And besides, the spirit had made it clear that Casey could change her mind wanted to.
She had until Christmas night to decide whether to go through with it.
Her phone pinged an alert and she opened it.
It was a celebrity news notification confirming what she’d been dreading for the last few weeks: Sam Moon announces extended book tour dates following the publication of his memoir, Hopeless Romantic…
She groaned and went back to restocking the festive sleepsuits in the baby clothing department, her resolve crystalizing as she worked; there was no way she’d be passing up the opportunity to erase the meme.
Sam would be pulling out all the stops to make sure that his memoir was top of everybody’s Christmas wish list. Her name was about to be mud all over again.
That he had walked into a six-figure publishing deal, having never shown the slightest inclination or aptitude for writing before, while she had been desperately and doggedly slogging away at it for years without getting a single book published was perhaps the bitterest pill of all.
Just a few more weeks, she told herself, and it would all be gone and she could start living again. Maybe then her words would come back to her, and she’d write her own damn book!