"You know what? You"re right. I think it would be better if I just left you to do whatever it is that you do." He reached into his pocket and tossed Sadie a house key. "Lock up when you"re done."
Owen strode out of the kitchen, down the hall, and out the front door before anyone could think of a thing to stop him.
"For some people, the paranormal world is just too much for the boundaries of their minds to absorb," Rosemary said, not looking up from her cell phone.
"I don"t think it was the thought of the paranormal that scared Owen off," Sadie stated evenly. "It was probably the fact that you three look and act like a band of freaks from the planet Zolon. Have you ever considered toning things down a bit?"
Rosemary looked up and the three eyed one another critically for only a few seconds. Between the numerous piercings, tattoos, bald heads, and fluorescent hair, it was like a clown convention threw up in the room.
"I have no idea what you"re talking about," Rick said evenly. "But it would"ve been nice to stick with six people. Now when Maeva comes we"ll be short a person."
"Better to be one person short," Rosemary said, tap-tapping on her phone with her long black fingernails, "than to have negative energy in the room."
"True." Louise nodded her fluorescent-colored head wisely. She held up a cloth shopping sack. "I have a few items to set up. Shall we get the table ready?"
Just as they were rounding the front corridor to go upstairs, the front door opened and Maeva walked in with a wailing Osbert squirming in her arms.
"Sorry, everybody!" Maeva exclaimed. "Terry"s been kept late at his catering gig."
"You couldn"t get a sitter?" Louise asked, shouting over the infant"s screams. "You know you shouldn"t bring a baby to a seance!"
"I know," Maeva said, scowling at Louise. "Do you think I would"ve brought him if there was a sitter on the planet who was deaf enough to put up with the screeching?"
"Make it stop!" Rick shouted, placing his hands over his ears.
"Oh for G.o.d"s sakes." Sadie snagged the tyke from Maeva"s arms and abruptly the screams halted. "They just don"t get your Ozzsomeness," Sadie told the baby. In response, Osbert gurgled and blew a large spit bubble.
Maeva reached up and removed orange foam earplugs from her ears.
"Thank all G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses for Sadie," Rosemary announced; then she pointed upstairs. "At least now we"re a multiple of three again."
Sadie figured it was more like five and a quarter given Osbert"s size, but she didn"t argue. The sooner they could get this done, the sooner she could get home to late-night television and a cold beer, or a cold shower to stop her from thinking about Owen"s s.e.xy body. She could still smell the distant scent of his cologne in the room.
"Let"s get this thing rolling. In two hours I"ve got to be in a chat room cla.s.s instructing scrying," Louise said.
The five stomped up the stairs, with Sadie swinging Osbert in the crook of her arm. The baby had wrapped his chubby fist around the necklace and was trying to cram the disc into his gurgling mouth.
Up in the master bedroom, Sadie watched as Louise decorated the table with the contents of her bag.
"Is this your first seance?" Louise asked Sadie.
"Yup." Sadie held Osbert"s face up to hers. "We"re newbies, aren"t we?"
Osbert blew a wet raspberry between his lips and gave Sadie an adoring, toothless grin.
"She"s like the frickin" baby whisperer," Maeva muttered, and everyone laughed.
Louise spread a simple white tablecloth on the small round table and added two colored candles next to the other white pillar one in the middle.
"We use a white tablecloth for purity and protection," Louise explained. She drew a lighter from her pocket and lit the three candles in the center. "For the same reason, one of these candles is white."
"The purple one represents the third eye, or psychic powers," Maeva added.
"The black one helps to repel negative energy," remarked Rick. He pulled a small packet from his pocket. "I brought the incense."
"We burn sandalwood scent for spiritual harmony," said Rosemary, who still had her phone in her hand.
Maeva reached into the diaper bag on her shoulder and placed a dinner roll next to the burning incense.
"For munchies?" Sadie asked.
"For spirits who seek nourishment," Maeva corrected.
"Better a bun than my blood," Sadie remarked, sitting down at the table with Osbert in her lap.
"Vampires are make-believe," Louise said with a laugh.
"But dead people who crave dinner rolls aren"t?" Sadie countered. "Sorry, I didn"t bring anything tonight."
"You"ll be our medium," Louise said and pointed for everyone else to join Sadie around the table.
"Say what?" Sadie"s mouth dropped open. "I"ve never even been to a seance before so I don"t think I should be running the show."
Louise shrugged. "The house chose you when the words "Bring Sadie" were scrawled on the wall," Louise added. Sadie shuddered and glanced reluctantly at the freshly painted wall. She preferred the light tan color Owen painted over bloodred any day.
"Fine. Let"s get this over with." Sadie cleared her throat. "Tell me what to do."
"Let"s be clear of our intentions first," Rosemary said. She lifted up her cell phone and proceeded to snap a picture.
"Stop that," Maeva admonished.
Rosemary put her phone on the table, resting it against one of the candles.
"Our intention should be to call the spirit here and then encourage him or her to move on so that Owen and Gayla may claim this house for their renovations," Rick suggested.
"And if they resist moving on, we can suggest that they merely act in a more peaceful and benevolent manner rather than throwing things and scaring people," Louise added.
"Since some here are touch-sensitive and can"t hold hands with Sadie, let"s just hold our fingers up, almost touching, and go around the table asking for the spirit to join us," Maeva said. She cleared her throat, took a deep breath in through her nose, and exhaled slowly through her mouth. "Beloved spirit, we bring you gifts from life into death. Please move among us and commune with us."
After Maeva spoke, everyone around the table continued to hold up their hands in almost-touching positions while they repeated what Maeva had said: "Beloved spirit, we bring you gifts from life into death. Please move among us and commune with us."
Sadie murmured a word here and there but she"d always been bad with the memorization of lyrics to popular songs, so it wasn"t until the fourth round of chanting that she thought she may have gotten the words correct.
"Sadie, why don"t you ask the spirit to show herself?" Louise encouraged.
Sadie looked at her posse, who looked particularly comical in the flicker of the candlelight.
"I don"t know . . . ," Sadie replied. "It feels kind of silly."
Abruptly there was a loud bang and everyone jumped in their chairs. Sadie noticed with relief that the closet door behind her had simply fallen back off its top hinge and sat at a wonky angle. The heavy door had landed with a thud onto the solid wood floor.
"That scared me to death!" Sadie exclaimed through a bubble of laughter.
"It"s definitely a sign," Rosemary said. "The spirit is trying to connect."
"Don"t be getting your hopes up. Owen was fixing the hinges on that door just before you all came. Obviously he"s not the best repairman."
The words were hardly out of her mouth when the door swung open with a ma.s.sive crash against the wall. Sadie nearly dropped Osbert. Abruptly Maeva and Rick each clasped one of Osbet"s hands, careful not to touch Sadie.
"Concentrate," Maeva hissed. "Thank you for joining us," Rosemary said to the room. "We are not here to harm you, only to make peace and-"
A wild whoosh of a hurricane-force air exploded from the gaping, dark closet door. The candles blew out and the wind picked up, circling them in a vicious, icy-cold vortex. The skirt of the tablecloth, as well as Louise"s bright hair, all stood straight up. Sadie found it difficult to breathe in the strong wind, but Osbert remained cool, as if this were no different than watching an episode of Elmo.
Suddenly Sadie"s chair was yanked back a foot and she nearly fell from the chair.
Maeva was on her feet and s.n.a.t.c.hed Osbert from her grasp just as Sadie"s chair began slowly sc.r.a.ping the floor, moving backward toward the closet door. Sadie tried to get up but she was unable to move. It was as though invisible ropes held her. Her Nikes dragged on the ground but did nothing to stop the sc.r.a.pe of her chair across the floor.
Rick, Maeva, Rosemary, and Louise ran to her, each of them grabbing part of the chair, but they were no match for the intense vacuum drawing Sadie toward the closet at a painfully slow rate.
"Do something!" Sadie screamed.
"We"re trying!" Maeva shouted back.
Sadie thrashed violently in the chair, trying to release her arms. She was almost at the closet entrance. Stealing a look over her shoulder, Sadie stared inside the dark void that was a swirling ma.s.s of black. Suddenly the ink-colored cloud parted and Sadie saw the translucent spirit of a young girl with her back turned. The girl turned to face them and her face transformed into that of a monstrous demon with jagged teeth.
Chapter 7.
The howling gale of wind pushed at Sadie"s friends, making their grip on her loosen with every inch as invisible ropes reeled Sadie closer. Swiftly, a howling current of air flung Sadie"s friends against the wall and pinned them behind the table and chairs as Sadie slid within inches of the dark, yawning opening in the wall.
This is it. I"m going to die by getting eaten alive by a monster in a closet.
Just as the thought formed in Sadie"s mind she saw Louise tug a crooked stick from her pocket and point it in Sadie"s direction. She yelled against the punishing current of air.
"Evil, we banish you! Positive energy, flow through us and surround us with light. G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, surround Sadie with light! So mote it be!"
It felt as though Louise"s stick released an electrical force that punched Sadie in the chest. Suddenly the wind stopped and Sadie"s chair fell backward, banging her back and head against the hardwood.
"Ouch," she whispered.
The closet door slammed shut with such force the entire room shook.
Louise, the Thingvolds, and Maeva, carrying a sniffling Osbert, surrounded Sadie and looked down on her.
"Thanks for d-doing that th-thing with your s-stick." Sadie shook violently, and her friends helped her as she got uncertainly to her feet. Her fingers rubbed the middle of her chest where she"d felt the blow from Louise"s spell. Sadie lifted up the pendant and looked at it. "Wow. You dented my necklace." The two-inch gold disc now had a concave look.
"It"s my new elder wand," Louise said, holding the piece of wood out proudly.
"It"s a stunner," Rosemary said admiringly.
"Did you carve those little hearts in it yourself?" Maeva asked.
Sadie"s eyes were wild as she looked from one to the other.
"Can we take this discussion outside?" she demanded. As she dusted herself off she glanced worriedly over her shoulder toward the closet. "I"m a little freaked out."
"We"ll do a circle of protection first," Louise said. "You"re welcome to wait outside."
"I think I"ll go home. I may have peed my pants," Sadie said.
"You have the key to lock up," Maeva reminded her. Osbert just then began sobbing and leaning out of Maeva"s arms toward Sadie. "Why don"t you take Osbert downstairs while we finish up?"
"C"mon, Blizzard of Ozz." Sadie took the baby and allowed him to nuzzle into her shoulder.
Downstairs Sadie walked the rooms on shaky legs. Without the presence of furniture, she sunk down onto the floor and sat cross-legged, with Osbert gnawing his tiny fist and eyeing her curiously.
"This isn"t how I usually spend my evenings," Sadie said.
Osbert stuck out his tongue and blew spit at her in reply.
Sadie"s cell phone began to vibrate in the pocket of her jeans, and when she saw who it was she s.n.a.t.c.hed it up anxiously.
"Hi!" she said, then corrected the wild excitement in her voice by clearing her throat and saying calmly, "How are you?"
"Okay," Zack replied. "Tired. I tried the house first. Are you out at a job?"
"Um. Not really." Sadie looked up the stairs toward the sound of chanting. "Just hanging out with Osbert and Maeva." Zack tolerated her supernatural side, but that didn"t mean he enjoyed hearing about it.
"Just wanted you to know I"m driving back tomorrow. I"ll stop by and get my things."
"Oh. Okay."
Sadie closed her eyes and stemmed the flow of tears. She hugged Osbert tightly against her chest. She"d honestly felt like he was calling to apologize. She"d been hoping he"d beg her to take him back and she"d, of course, say yes. Instead, as she was trying to adjust to what he"d told her, he was already saying good-bye.
Sadie stared at the dead phone and her hand shook as she stuffed it back in her pocket. Just then she saw the group coming back down the stairs, and Sadie got to her feet and moved Osbert to her hip.
"So I think we should have a chat about what happened here. We need to a.n.a.lyze why the evil that"s possessed this house wants Sadie," Louise announced.
"Tell you what," Sadie said, handing over a reluctant Osbert to his mother. "Why don"t you four have a discussion about that, while I go home and drink myself into a coma?"
"Aren"t you the least bit curious?" Rosemary asked.