Chapter 11 #2
“Hey!” I shouted. “You have to calm down! I can’t help you if I can’t understand what you’re saying!”
At once the planchette squeaked to a stop. It was still vibrating with energy, but it didn’t move again. I could have sworn I heard an exasperated sigh somewhere near my left ear.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now, please tell me who you are.”
Bea opened her mouth, but I shook my head at her.
I might be relatively new to witchcraft in general, but I knew enough to know that establishing the identity of the spirit speaking to us was crucial.
There were much darker entities with a vested interest in me, and I wasn’t about to be tricked into trusting one.
The planchette moved slowly and deliberately across the board: J-E-S-S-B-A-L-L-A-R-D.
“Okay, Jess. I’m sorry, but I need to make sure. You came to Sedgwick Cove to pass something along to me. What was it?”
The planchette jerked to life again: G-R-I-M-O-I-R-E.
I sighed with relief. At least now I could be sure of who we were talking to.
“Thanks, Jess. Okay, now, what is it you need from me?”
M-Y-B-O-D-Y
I blinked down at the words. “I… I’m sorry, Jess, but I’m not sure your body will do you much good now. You’re dead.”
N-O-T-D-E-A-D
Bea and I looked at each other, her sad expression mirroring my own. Xiomara had warned me that spirits were often confused about where they were and what had happened to them. Apparently Jess didn’t realize that she was dead, or at least she didn’t want to accept it.
“Jess, I’m really sorry, I’m sure this is hard for you, but—
The planchette started whizzing over the board again, and this time I had to concentrate to catch all the letters.
N-O-T-D-E-A-D
N-E-E-D-T-O-R-E-J-O-I-N-M-Y-B-O-D-Y
I stared at the words, my heart speeding up.
R-U-N-N-I-N-G-O-U-T-O-F-T-I-M-E
“I… I still don’t understand what you mean,” I said. “Even if we brought you back to your body, what good would it do?”
L-E-T-M-E-E-X-P-L-A-I-N
Another icy gust blew through the garden, knocking Bea’s sketchbook from the corner of the bench, and rifling the pages until it fell open to Bea’s sketch of Jess and the other words she had written. I looked at it again. There was a symbol, drawn over and over again…
“What is this?” I asked, more to myself than to Jess, but Jess answered at once.
R-U-N-E
I looked again. I had been learning about runes in my spellwork, though this one was unfamiliar to me.
D-R-A-W-O-N-W-R-I-S-T
My stomach gave an uneasy squirm. If my mother and my aunts had taught me one thing, it was never to mess around with magic I didn’t understand. “More damage comes from ignorance than from malevolence, remember that,” Rhi had said sternly, and I had taken her at her word.
“Why?” I asked, playing for time. “What does it do?”
H-E-L-P-Y-O-U-S-E-E-M-E
I raised my eyes from the spirit board, expecting to trade an anxious glance with Bea, but to my surprise, Bea looked flushed and bright-eyed with excitement. She was already diving for her bag, and then she straightened up again, holding a black marker.
“Let’s do as she says!” Bea whispered eagerly.
“Bea, this is… this could be really dangerous. I don’t know this woman. I don’t know what her intentions are. Aren’t you worried this might be a trap or trick?”
“No, I’m not,” Bea replied. “Don’t you feel her energy?”
I hesitated. “I’m not sure what you—”
“Just concentrate on her,” Bea said. “What do you feel?”
I closed my eyes and tried to relax my mind, like Xiomara had taught me.
I imagined a web reaching out around me, seeking and tasting and feeling.
It had never worked very well before—sporadically at best, and the impressions weak—but now, I had to brace myself against an onslaught of emotion that wasn’t my own.
It made me gasp, and I had to concentrate even harder not to be swept away with the tide of it.
I identified the emotions as they shuddered through me: Fear.
Desperation. Hope. But more important were the emotions I didn’t sense: Greed. Hatred. Hunger.
My eyes flew open to find Bea looking calmly back at me, as though she knew everything I’d just felt, and what it all meant.
“You know it’s pretty aggravating how much better you are at all of this,” I said to her. “I’m supposed to be the powerful one here.”
Bea’s face split into an embarrassed smile. “You have five elements to learn. I only have one.”
“Yeah, but still—”
Another frigid breeze bit at my face. It tasted like impatience. “Okay! Okay, I’ll do it!”
Bea had already uncapped the marker and was reaching for my hand. Reluctantly, I held it out to her and watched, holding my breath, while she carefully copied the symbol from her notebook onto the pale skin of the underside of my wrist.
The effect was almost instantaneous. Like a radio trying to tune to the right station, images and sounds started flickering in my head.
At first, I heard only the scattered words of a language I didn’t know, then the air around me grew heavy, like the air before a lightning strike.
One moment I was staring at an empty garden, and then next, I blinked and there she was: Jess Ballard, sitting about six inches from my face.
I gave a yelp and skittered back from her, whacking the back of my head on the gazebo pole. My eyes watered with the pain.
“Fucking finally!” Jess cried. Her voice, though clear, sounded like it was echoing up from the bottom of a deep well.
“It is you!” I gasped.
“What happened? Did it work? Can you see her?” Bea asked, face shining with excitement.
“Go on and draw that rune on her as well,” Jess said. “And then she’ll be able to see me, too.”
Rubbing the back of my head, I moved back to the bench and replicated the rune on Bea’s wrist. This time, I could hear that the unfamiliar language was coming from Jess—she was reciting some kind of incantation as I worked. A moment later, Bea lifted her gaze and spotted Jess.
“There you are!” Bea cried in delight. Despite her somewhat manic energy, Jess managed a grin.
“Nice to meet you, Bea,” she said.
“This is wild—what was that, a spell? Are you a witch?” I asked.
“No, I’m not a witch. That was a kind of spell, though. It’s called a Melding, and it helps the living connect with the dead,” Jess explained.
“How can you be doing spells if you’re not a—”
“Look, Wren, I promise I will explain all of this to you when I’ve got my body back,” Jess said, a snap of impatience in her voice.
“Jess, I haven’t been a practicing witch very long, but even I know there’s no magic that can restore a spirit to a body once it’s been severed by death,” I told her, trying to keep my voice gentle, even as the rest of me practically vibrated with the excitement of actually seeing and talking to a ghost.
“I’m aware of that, Wren, but the thing is, I’m not dead. I’m Walking,” Jess said.
“What’s—”
“I used a Casting—that’s what we call spells—to leave my body and take a spirit form. My body only seems to be dead. But I’m still tethered to it, and as soon as I return to it, I’ll be walking and talking and breathing again.”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“I’ll be happy to prove it to you,” Jess said, and again, there was an undercurrent of impatience in her tone.
“You said, ‘that’s what we call spells.’ Who’s we?” I asked.
Jess let out a groan of frustration. “Wren, I appreciate you want answers, but I’m running out of time, here. I’ll explain everything when I’ve got my body back.”
“But if what you’re saying is true, and you really can rejoin with your body, why do you need our help?” Bea asked in her bright, clear voice.
Jess’s expression turned grim. “Because thanks to Wren and the Sedgwick Cove Police Department, my body isn’t where I left it anymore.”
I felt myself bristling. “Hey, how were we supposed to know you were doing some kind of weird zombie trick?” I snapped. “Your body was just lying there, no breathing, no pulse! Anyone would have thought you were dead!”
Jess rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay, fair enough, but if we don’t get moving, I will actually be dead. Are you going to help me or not?”
“If we do, do you promise you’ll explain everything?” I countered.
Before Jess could reply, Bea piped up again. “Of course, we’ll help you! What do we need to do?”
Jess’s face split into a mischievous smile as she turned to look at Bea. “Ever broken into a morgue before?”