With that, she turned away, pulling George along with her to their car.
Jones knelt next to Donovan, who looked confused.
“Her eyes . . .” he began.
“What about them,” Jones said absently, as he watched Meredith walk away.
“Her eyes were on fire.”
Meredith Perenais’s Journal
June 26, 2009
I said the words today!
It’s been too long in coming, this. More than twenty years. So many spells and foolish potions. Witchcraft isn’t about herbs and livers. It’s taken me far too long to learn what I know. It’s taken me far too long to grow strong. The searching, the planning . . . The failures. Looking for the strength to try again. I never gave up, not for long. There is always a way, though. If a door can open one direction, it can open another. I’ve opened doors before that were closed to anyone else. I’ve brought back men from the edge of death. Though I’ve never brought anyone back before who had fully crossed.
I hope he still knows how much I love him. I gave him my blood for this, and so much more. And finally I said the words:
Make them rue the day they hurt you.
My strength yours as long as you can
stay with me and make them regret
the day they hurt the Pumpkin Man.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
“I talked to Brian’s mom,” Nick announced. He set the cordless phone back in its cradle in the living room and flopped down in the easy chair next to it.
“How is she?” Kirstin asked. She and Jennica had waited on the couch while he’d gone to the back bedroom to make the call.
“Pretty broken up,” he said. “And it’s still not even totally sunk in. Brian was really tight with his family.”
“I’m so sorry,” Jenn whispered. “I’m really—”
“It’s not your fault,” Nick snapped. When she visibly cringed, he pushed himself out of his chair to sit next to her. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him,” he admitted. “We’ve been buds since high school. His parents are like my own.”
“How did you first meet him?” Jenn asked, trying to help him talk it out.
Nick laughed. “He beat me up.”
“That’s how you met?”
He nodded. “Pretty much. He had this little gang, you know, and he was like . . . the cool kid. He was on the football team, and somehow was always able to get beer for parties on the weekends. I pretty much kept to myself, and so his gang decided it’d be fun to pick on the quiet kid. Except when I kneed his friend in the nuts, Brian stepped in and decked me.”
“And after that, naturally you became best friends?”
He laughed again. “I think Brian felt guilty, and after that, he kind of took me on as his special project. I had been pretty dweeby up to that point, and he got me on to the football team. He pulled me out of my shell, really.” He smiled. “And I forced him to do his homework.”
“Sounds a lot like me and Kirstin,” Jenn said.
“Nah,” Kirstin piped in. “I never tried to get you on to sports. I just tried to get you laid.”
Nick smiled. “Brian did that, too. Who invited you over to join us at Bottom of the Hill that night?” He grew quiet for a minute, obviously thinking back to better times. Then he continued. “Anyway, Brian and I have been friends forever. So I need to go see his parents tomorrow. But I meant what I said before. This is not your fault. This one is bigger than all of us. We just happened to walk into it, unfortunately. Don’t blame yourself.”
“I have to find a way to stop it,” Jenn said. As she vocalized the words, she felt something harden inside her; something that had been soft and easily pushed around for most of her life. Something that suddenly wanted to really take a stand. Maybe for the first time, ever. “I may not have started it, but I have to end it.”
“How? What are you going to do?” Kirstin asked.
“I’m going to ask for help. But I need your help to do that.”
Nick looked up. “What are you talking about?”
“Hang on.” Jenn got up and went into Nick’s room, where she’d left her things. She opened her bag, and stared at the thing inside. Really? she asked herself. And the answer came almost immediately. Yes. She was not going to stand by and let this just happen. Not this time. Meredith had shown her the way . . . she just needed to be strong enough to follow it. She emerged from the bedroom a minute later with both a new determination, and her aunt’s tablet of varnished wood covered by the etched letters of the alphabet. And the words YES and NO.
“When did you get that?” Nick gasped.
“You went to the bathroom when we were up at the house, and I realized that the police are not going to be able to solve this thing. This isn’t about catching a normal killer. Hell, you heard the chief. Even he believes that the Pumpkin Man has come back from the dead. This is not about the police, this is about catching a ghost. They can dust for prints in that house all they want, but they’re not going to catch anyone. We need my aunt. She had something to do with this. So, if I could just talk to her . . .”
“Oh no,” Kirstin said. “I think we’ve seen just about enough of that thing. Put it away.”
Jenn ignored her and sat back down. “My aunt started this. I’ve read just about all of her journal now. At first I thought it was all bullshit and she was crazy—she wrote a lot in there about collecting these weird herbs and mixing them with blood and all sorts of other shit. I really thought she had just gone batty out here in the middle of nowhere. But now, I don’t think so. The stuff that’s been happening to me, and to people in River’s End . . . it’s not natural. If half of what Meredith wrote about was true, then she was able to make contact with spirits, and she got them to help her do things that she wanted. That’s what magic really is: getting help from the other side.
“Well, guess what?” she continued. “We need help. But I can’t do it alone. And Meredith used this Ouija board to get help. Why shouldn’t we do the same?”
Nick laid his arm across her shoulder. “Let it go,” he begged. “You’re out of there now. You’re safe here with me. Just . . . please let it go.”
“Safe?” Jenn said. “Are you kidding me? Do you really think we’re any better off here, an hour or two down the road? I don’t think so. That thing came all the way to Chicago and killed my dad. They found pumpkin pieces in his apartment after they took away his body. Oh, and guess what? His head was missing. So don’t try to tell me I’m safe!”
“Well, I don’t think touching that thing is the answer either,” Nick said. “God knows what you’re really talking to on the other end. Maybe it’s the Pumpkin Man himself, did you ever think of that? Maybe HE is what’s answering you. Maybe every time you touch it, you’re letting him out again.”
“I don’t think my dad was playing with a Ouija board,” Jenn said. She set the board down on the coffee table. “Look,” she said, turning to Nick in a blatant appeal. “That thing killed Brian. Don’t you want to avenge his death? Don’t you want to make sure that fucker can never hurt anyone else again? Because I sure do.”
At first, Nick didn’t answer. When he did, it was in a very measured tone. “Your aunt may have stirred up something that ultimately caused her death, and she might have done it with that. And your dad’s death. And Brian’s. Do you really want to risk making the same mistake?”