Page 23 of Devils and the Dead
I cannot…she senses…the curse…
I release you. Leave and be at peace. Rest. Rest, dear Tinsel, and know that I am always with you. Rest.
I let go, returning to my body and my house. After a few deep breaths to center myself, I said a cleansing spell, then blew out my candles, put away the spell components and the bones, and wiped off the sigils.
Then I scrubbed down my table and sage-smudged the whole area.
Maude came out and watched as I was working. I half expected her to make some comment about the table needing extra cleaning or something but she remained silent, her arms folded across her chest.
“I listened,” she finally said as I finished smudging. “There wasn’t any screaming or anything scary. You were just there, but not there. It was like you were an empty body in a chair with candles and incense all around.”
“Sometimes I call the spirit to me, but in this case I needed to go where the spirit was,” I explained. “He’s under a curse, and I realized he wouldn’t be able to leave the place where his spirit is entombed.”
Maude shuddered. “Were you able to help him?”
“Not yet. I’m working on it, though.”
She nodded. “I couldn’t just stay in my room. I had to peek out the door, to watch and listen. My family was everything to me in my first life. Everything. But this is a new life, and although I still love and care for them, they’re not really going to be my family anymore. But you are. You’re part of my new family. You brought me back from the grave. You’re trying to resurrect me, to help me the same as you’re helping those elves. And I feel as if something is linking me to you. I know that as long as I live, I’ll regard you as family. Even after my death, I’ll still continue to think of you as family.”
That was sweet, but a bit disturbing. I liked Maude and didn’t mind continuing our friendship—I was the one who’d brought her back from the grave, as she’d said. But I worried that what I’d done had magically linked us. A genuine caring for another was one thing, but a magical binding would be just as horrific as bringing her back into a decayed body.
One more thing to add to my list of sins.
The beep of my phone saved me from answering. I looked down and thought there must be some sort of fate guiding these events, because the text was from Rita.
Rita. The great granddaughter of Maude, Rita.
Chapter 11
Babylon
Can you swing by today before you head in to work?Rita’s text said.
I had a bad feeling about this. Rita was a good friend, but not someone who regularly texted me. I saw her once every few weeks—sometimes only once a month. We hadn’t connected since the bonfire other than the usual thank-you-for-inviting-me, I-had-a-great-time sort of thing. Usually one of us would message the other about a lunch get-together, or a band playing at a local winery, but this text felt ominous.
Sure. Hope all is okay?
I watched the icon that indicated Rita was typing a response with some dread.
No emergency. Kristin said you were good with ghosts? Might have a haunting. Might be my imagination.
I looked over at Maude who’d taken a quick peek at my phone early in the text conversation, but was now studiously examining the newly cleaned table.
“Did you go over to your old house? Visit with Rita, maybe?”
Maude glanced up, guilt written all over her expression. “I was so careful. It was night, and I covered up so no one could see me and be frightened at my appearance.”
“How did you get there?” I hadn’t even noticed Maude sneaking out. Of course the zombie didn’t sleep. Nights must be horribly boring for her with crappy television shows and no one else awake. But how had she made the eight-mile journey from my house to Rita’s farm?
Maude looked back at the table, picking at some invisible speck with her fingers. “I tried to hitch a ride with my thumb out, but no one seemed willing to give a woman covered head to toe in a sheet a ride. So I walked.”
My mouth fell open. “You walked eight miles?” Actually sixteen miles, unless she’d somehow managed to get a ride back.
“I used to do that a lot when I was alive before,” she said, her voice defensive. “It was more like six miles since I cut through fields and backyards.”
I shook my head in disbelief, realizing it must have taken her all night just to walk there and back. Not that I could really blame the woman. She’d been trapped in my house for weeks, crocheting, watching television, reading the few books I had scattered around the house.
“I went to the family cemetery a bit to look around. I wanted to visit my children’s graves and speak to them. Then I did go up to the house to look through the windows. I thought everyone was asleep. They’ve updated the kitchen. It looks really nice with the new tile and appliances, and I’m glad to see they left the old fireplace intact. The shelves are gone in the parlor though. I was a little sad about that.”
