“Those woods behind this house? The marshes? All grandmother’s property. Ghosts, like any vestige, don’t hold up that much to poking and prodding. They’re remnants of horrible or inspiring events. Psychic impressions, right?”
“So you said, last night,” I told her.
“They function best in enclosed spaces, especially any enclosed spaces they have connections to. Houses, houses with bodies still in them, lurking near their murder weapons, and so on. But that’s not the key bit. They also function in places with very few humans to mess with them. The wilderness.”
“The woods and marshes,” I said.
“Exactly. There aren’t many places where you find intact ghosts, and they aren’t really sought after, because they’re unreliable to work with and they tend to burn out if you draw on them for power.”
Like a vestige does.
“Too much expenditure for minimal gains.”
“So we’re supposed to go looking for them in the woods, a good distance from this sanctuary? Put life and limb at risk, for a minimal gain?”
“We could. Or maybe grandmother has a book where she wrote down notable ghosts and their locations. We call them to us, instead of going their way.”
I stopped midway down the staircase. I had to shift the books to one arm before I could pick up and move the makeshift mirror-pendant I wore. I could see Rose standing a short distance up the stairs. When I had her in my sights, and vice versa, I gave her a disapproving look. “You mean I’ve got to trek back to the library and go look for some hypothetical book of ghost names?”
“Nope,” Rose said. She lifted a book so it was visible to me. “See? I’ve already found it, and I’ve got it. Nothing needed here that I can’t recite aloud for you.”
“Alright,” I said. I started making my way downstairs. I found Rose waiting for me in the living room. “Sounds like a plan. Sounds like we’ve got some disturbing, soulless freaks of nature to summon. When we’re done that, we can take a break and summon some ghosts.”
“What do- right. Har har.”
“Seriously though, lawyers or ghosts first?” I asked.
“Lawyers. We can’t keep putting it off.”
I found grandmother’s phone. When I picked up, however, there was no dial tone.
“Fuck!” I swore.
“Nothing?” Rose asked.
I shook my head. “Someone must have cut the line recently. Or the service was disconnected.”
“Repeat the firm’s name, then? Everything seems to indicate it gets the same result.”
“I have trouble buying that,” I said. “I can’t help but feel the ominous repetition has a little more weight than a phone call.”
“You said it yourself, we can’t keep putting it off.”
I nodded, looking for and finding the little black book in the pile of books I’d collected.
“Mann, Levinn, and Lewis.”
My words seemed hollow and small in the crowded living room with its books and the lingering mess.
“Mann, Levinn, and Lewis.”
My eyes roved around the room, looking for some sign that something was happening.
“Mann, Levinn, and Lewis.”
The third utterance.
We stood there, quiet, waiting for a response. I couldn’t shake the notion that the moment I relaxed and heaved a sigh of relief, there would be a knock on the door to startle me, a ring of the phone.
But I did relax, after a few minutes, and there was no knock.
“Nothing?” Rose asked.
I shook my head. “Maybe I have to be outside.”
“They came in from outside once already. The lawyers are the only ones this house doesn’t protect against. Them and the witch hunters.”
I frowned.
“There’s no rush, Blake. We find another way to contact them, or we keep researching, and we figure out if it’s safe to send this letter.”
“There is a rush,” I answered. “If we don’t do this soon, they’re going to figure out a trick to throw at us. A way to get us out of the house, like they got Molly, or the witch hunters, or something else. What if they come after us and there isn’t an opportunity to do anything like this for days or weeks? The whole idea is that we’re taking the offensive, to put them on the defensive and distract them to buy ourselves some breathing room.”
“Okay, no, I don’t disagree. I’m fine with going on the offense, so long as we’re smart about it.”
I nodded. I placed my hand down on the Valkyrie tome. “Since lawyers are off the table, and I’m done with the research for now… You’re thinking ghosts, then? Equipping ourselves, experimenting. This is smart?”
“I hope so. We’re going to have to go outside if we’re going to call one and trap it. Grab salt on the way?”
I nodded. “Okay. Okay on the ghosts, and okay on the salt. I’m open to this.”
She nodded. I saw a glimmer of that doubt and anger in her expression, but she said, “Thank you.”
I grabbed my winter stuff, the hatchet and bat, then picked up a box of salt from the kitchen. I passed under the stairs to the back of the house, pulling on the coat and gloves as I went, and stepped outside.
It was still in the early hours of dawn. The sun had only just started rising, and it was dark. I’d slept, then woken up early in the hopes of catching Laird off guard, while he was deep in sleep. If anyone was watching for connections while they were awake, then this was the hour to act.
Hillsglade House was situated on a hill, naturally, but the hill wasn’t a single round hump. There was a tail, and the tail disappeared into a sparse tree cover that gradually got thicker as it got further away from the house.
It put me in mind of my fight to escape the bird-skull things. Disappearing into the trees, getting turned around, not being sure of where to go.
The back porch was covered in snow, grit, and piles of leaves that hadn’t quite been cleared. Snow had piled up around a short wall that enclosed the area. Stairs led down onto the snow-covered ‘tail’ of hills that gently sloped down into the trees.
Not that gently, when I thought about it. With the snow and ice, the path would be treacherous.
“Since we’re outside… Mann, Levinn, and Lewis,” I said. “Mann, Levinn, and Lewis. Mann, Levinn, and Lewis.”
There was only the sound of the wind whistling through the trees. Eerily quiet.
We looked around, but there was no sign of anyone being nearby.
“Worth a try,” I said. “We need a phone, which is another catch-twenty-two. We need the phone to get hold of the lawyers to figure out when and where we might be safe enough to go get access to a phone.”
“Well, having ghost help might make a difference, in terms of being able to defend ourselves if we’re making a run for it. If you’re ready?” Rose asked.
“Unbroken circle, I’m assuming,” I said.
“In salt, yes. You’ll want to clear the snow.”
I looked around, half-convinced an Other was poised to leap on top of me the moment my back was turned. But it was approaching daylight, and the back of the house was in view of some of the town. If there were Others near, they were of a sneaky sort. I grabbed a shovel from beside the back door and began clearing the patio, revealing frost-crusted brick tile beneath. I had to scrape the shovel against the brick to chip off the ice where it was more stubborn. Touching the metal handle, I could feel the chill seeping through my gloves.