The Shem Bay Haunting (Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Book 3) Read online

  Pratt closes his eyes and pushes his glass away. “Of course I do, but this is preposterous. You’re making an assumption. What you’re saying would make sense if…. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.” He goes to refill his glass.

  “Would make sense if what?”

  He’s standing at the bar, staring out the window. “If he had died in this house. He didn’t. If he had been… haunting me…. Your theory is absurd.”

  “This entire conversation would be absurd if only you hadn’t seen an apparition. There is no time or space were spirits are concerned. I believe he’s come to you at a time when you both need it most. You need to resolve this matter in your own mind and heart.”

  Pratt is back at his desk, staring at his half-filled glass. He looks up. “What if…. What if I can’t?”

  “I can’t answer that for you. You need to look into the mirror and be honest with yourself. I understand this is a very private and personal matter. I can’t help you or the spirit who is haunting you and your daughter if you refuse to take action to release it.”

  “What kind of action?”

  “Together, alone in this house, I’d like to contact the spirit by way of a séance.”

  Pratt chokes on a laugh. “Turbans and floating tables? Are you kidding me?”

  “No,” I say in my soothing voice. “Sage, candles, and the Ouija board.”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  §

  Pratt would be less angry right now if he was more sober, but he isn’t. His transparent gray aura is laced with streaks of bright but dirty yellow and thick, muddy blue– fear, especially fear of the truth.

  I can hear the ocean in my ears as if I’m holding a seashell to them. “I should go,” I say, without consciously intending to do so. I’m on the edge of the chair.

  “I hired you to resolve this matter. You said you could and would.”

  Now my own aura is spiked with red, and I don’t need a mirror to know this. “The terms of my guarantee is clearly stated in my contract. You’ll find cooperation tops the list of things I require in order to do my job. Whosever spirit is here, it’s haunting you not me. What’s on the surveillance footage that you don’t want me to see?”

  Pratt finishes his third drink since I’ve been here and forces his eyes to look away from the bar. I’m not sure he’s even listening to me now. “A Ouija board? Isn’t that a nineteenth century parlor game?”

  “It’s a tool not a magic trick. A tool that allows spirits to communicate. The dead aren’t able to articulate as one would prefer.”

  “Do you have any idea what would happen to me, my career, my reputation if anyone found out….” Pratt shakes his head and goes to the bar.

  “Probably no worse than if it got out that you’re an alcoholic.”

  He slams a glass bottle onto the bar. “You’re out of line, Ms. Raven.”

  “So are you, but I’m the one who’s out of options. You’ve put up a wall. I can’t climb any higher to get over it. I anticipate that things will get worse not better and sooner than later. For you and Mackenzie.”

  Pratt teeters in setting his glass on his desk before falling back into his chair. He covers his forehead with his hand and hangs his head. “What… how would it work?”

  His voice is hollow and cold. Now I’m not feeling pity, but fear. I’m not sure if it’s Pratt’s fear or my own. I’m reconsidering my recommendation to step into the spirit world with this troubled man when he looks up. His sneer fades and he deflates like a balloon.

  “I thought it would be easier.”

  Seriously? I almost say, but I’m back to feeling sorry for him. “I’ll need to prep the house tomorrow afternoon. Make arrangements to have Mackenzie stay elsewhere after she leaves for school in the morning. Give Mrs. Jankovic the day off. I’ll be ready to begin after you return home in the evening. I’ll also need one of the last photographs of Blake.”

  Pratt squirms in his chair. He pinches his brows together like he has a horrible headache.

  “No alcohol, no exceptions. If I even suspect you’ve had something to drink, I’ll leave and not return. I suggest you spend time relaxing and clearing your mind before we begin. I also suggest you skip dinner.” Pratt flinches and I smile.

  “The séance should take less than an hour, but don’t make any other plans for the evening. And no, Doctor, it’s not some kind of parlor game, which you’ll soon discover.”

  He goes to speak but his mouth just hangs open. His eyes are watery and glued to the wall behind me. By tomorrow morning, I wonder if he’ll remember half of what I’ve said.

  “Please understand and take seriously that I’ll be opening a portal to the spirit realm. If you have something you want to disclose, now is the time to do it. I’m warning you not to go into this with a heart or mind filled with deceit or hostility. If you have something to confess, the time has come.”

  Pratt’s thoughts are elsewhere. “If… if you contact him, Blake. Then what?”

  “I’ll ask him what’s holding him here. I’ll provide him the opportunity to get closure. To say what he left unsaid when he was here. As his father, I’ll ask you to help me release him. You have to be willing to forgive yourself and your son. You both have to let go.”

  Pratt throws back his fourth drink and sets the glass down hard on his desk without seeming to notice. “I need time—

  “I’m out of time. The week we agreed upon is over. I’ll stay for this, but I won’t wait any longer for your cooperation. We should have done this a few days after I arrived. I’ve wasted time searching for what you could have told me that first night, told me before I left New Mexico.”

  “I had no way of knowing who or what—

  “You didn’t have to know, you had to answer my questions honestly and you didn’t. You still aren’t. The week is over. You can leave me a voice message in the morning. You’re not in any state of mind to make a clear decision right now. Goodnight, Doctor.”

  I close his door and feel a rush of energy as if something pushed it behind me. The house is dark and cold. The only light on this end of the house comes from under the door of Pratt’s study.

  I go in the direction of the front door, stopping in the entryway. There’s a click upstairs: a door carefully shut. At the staircase, I close my eyes and listen. When I hear a noise from the study, I walk out the door.

  The wind pushes me back as I go to the guest house. Mojo is waiting to go out. I grab an extra jacket and follow him to the cliff. He’s got his head held up, sniffing the salty sea air and pine trees.

  I leave him to walk towards the road then make my way through the brush and trees that hang over the cliff above the beach. The waves are calm and hypnotic.

  “Blake Pratt, tell me what truth you left unsaid,” I whisper. “Tell me what made you want to leave and what it is that causes you to stay.”

  Tell me the wind whispers back, and I almost feel the little boy next to me. “It’s okay to tell me. Tell me how I can help you.”

  Shame on you, floats in the wind.

  “Your shame? Your father’s? Feel no guilt for what you did. You are forgiven. In spirit, you can forgive yourself and others. All you need to do is let go.”

  When a werewolf howl from Mojo breaks the sound barrier, it still takes me a second to snap out of my trance and another to start running to the guest house. Pratt’s standing on the front porch. Mojo is barely visible racing into the woods behind the guest house.

  I call him before he catches whoever is fleeing in the direction of Martin’s house. He stops and turns back then turns again. I yell and he hangs his head as he trots back then he gives me the amber evil eye. He does not like to give up when so close to nabbing his prey.

  Pratt’s followed me and is clearly out of breath. “What’s going on?”

  “I need to check the guest house. I think your neighbor was over here again.”

  “You left the door unlocked?” Pratt’s slurring his words.

>   The door’s still shut and once inside, I see nothing that’s out of place. I doubt whoever it was made it to the door with Mojo so close.

  “I thought I told you to keep the door locked.”

  Pratt’s behind me. The wolfdog is pacing, watching the woods, and eying me. I’m tempted to tell him to go. Instead, I turn around and walk to within a few inches of Pratt.

  “You have a neighbor who’s sneaking around, trespassing, probably looking in your windows, wanting to do who knows what to me. You have three female employees and a defenseless little girl. You fear some scandal that you think would be caused by calling the police on a peeping tom or a sub-human thing that’s much worse. And you dare to ask me if a door is locked? That’s your concern? The door?”

  Pratt takes two steps back and I take one forward and raise my finger. “You know that pride is one of the seven deadly sins? Don’t you, Doctor?”

  He steps back again and this time I think he might fall. He looks around the ground as if he thinks he did. His eyes twitch when they look back at me. “If everything is okay, I’ll leave you alone.” He stumbles and hurries back to the house.

  Mojo runs a few feet in the direction of the woods, comes back, then runs again.

  “Not tonight,” I tell him. “Before we leave this place, I promise we’ll pay Martin a visit.” One somebody should have paid him a long time ago.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  §

  There is a short but coherent message on my phone when I get up the next morning. Jankovic has been instructed to bring me the key to the house when she finishes with things that could not be postponed. Pratt anticipates that will be between ten-forty five and eleven o’clock.

  A photo of Blake is in the second drawer of his desk in an envelope with my name on the front. He requests that I keep the odors to a minimum. I replay that part thinking I misunderstood him. I didn’t and realize he’s talking about the sage. Overall, it was a concisely anal message with a dash of humor.

  Deep breaths produce a wheezing sound in my lungs; it’s an improvement over yesterday. There’s a small knot on the side of my forehead that I didn’t previously notice. I must have hit something harder than sand in that water. I still hear the waves pounding in my ears, and I don’t think it’s my imagination. The back of my shoulder is swollen and bruised from the piercing of the wolfdog’s teeth; it fared far better than my new raincoat.

  After breakfast, I drive to the beach to meet my fears, as Maybelle would say. She once made me sit in a dark closet after I told her there was a boogeyman who lived in it at night. I think I was around three. When my mom found me sitting there, I told her I had just sent a monster to Hades. She banned Maybelle from the house for a week and threatened to call the police on her. Maybelle congratulated me on my victory.

  The air is warmer today or I’m getting used to the chilly Oregon weather. Every time I get close to the shore, Mojo tangles in my feet. “Why didn’t you do that last night?” I ask him.

  When I get to the log where I made contact with the spirit of Blake Pratt, I sit down and set my alarm so I don’t miss Jankovic and getting the key. The wolfdog’s dragged some seaweed over and is lying on my feet, holding me down while tearing the slimy green strands to pieces.

  Once my smudge stick is burning, I toss rock salt around me in a tight protective circle. Then I ask the spirits of the Tututni tribe to join me, to tell me of the shame that this land knows and holds onto.

  In the distance, I hear the other worldly drumming, the sad cries of the flutes, the chants of the wise. When I feel myself slipping deeper into the sounds, I smell the fires of a hundred years ago. In my mind, I see orange embers that I saw last night.

  “I come in peace and reverence of your wisdom, and I honor you as caretakers of this land. Guide me to do what is right. Help me to release this spirit that is lost and confused. Give me a message.”

  Shame on him, blows in the wind. The sound of the ocean crashes so hard in my ears that I feel unbalanced on the log. Shame on Blake? Shame on Pratt? The death of the soul. What does that even mean?

  I go back to the jeep and search for Chinook, beliefs, and death of the soul on my phone. All I find is the translation for shem and an old publication about death of the soul by sorcery. The sorcerer, who has control over the supernatural world– good luck with that one– uses an image of a person to steal the soul. I don’t think that is what Maybelle was talking about.

  When my alarm goes off, I give up my search. Mojo’s drug the seaweed back to lie by the jeep. He’s hacking up slime. “Time to go,” I tell him. “We get to do a séance tonight.” I can tell he’s very excited.

  As soon as I get back to the guest house, I pack my things: rock salt, my candle, the Ouija board, and of course, extra sage. Then I wait for Jankovic. I don’t doubt she’ll take her time in bringing me the key.

  I’m right. It’s ten after eleven when Mojo goes to the door. I look through the peephole and motion for him to sit so he can greet her. When she yelps, I come from behind the door.

  “The key,” she says, with great personal offense.

  I take it and am tempted to slam the door in her face, but there’s more fear in her eyes than anger. “Thank you?” I shrug and wait.

  “Why you tell Doctor send me away?”

  “Business,” I say. “Enjoy your day off.”

  “I know why you come here. Not good.”

  “Why not?” She starts to leave. “Why not? Have you put a curse on this family?”

  She turns back, her eyes are darting around. A curse is something I seriously considered about the woman.

  “No,” she barks. “Lidérc itt lakik.”

  “What does itt lakik mean?”

  “Lives here. Lidérc lives here.”

  She turns to go and I yell to her. “The chicken demon? It lives in Dr. Pratt’s house?”

  “No. Választott.”

  “English, please.”

  “Chosen,” she pounds on her chest then shakes her finger at me before saying, “Demon.”

  “Wait. Who’s the demon? You? Me? Pratt?”

  She’s already going back to the house, mumbling something in Hungarian as she scurries away. I hope she didn’t just put a curse on me. Then she yells back at me, “Gyermek.”

  “English,” I say, but it’s already too late. Gyermek. I’ve got to look that one up.

  I wait outside until I see Jankovic’s car drive away. I don’t need her filling my head with thoughts of the lidérc or any other Hungarian folktale, though I don’t doubt there’s much truth to those tales; I just hope none of that truth is in the house.

  The first thing I do once I’m inside is go to Pratt’s study and get the photo of Blake. It’s in an old frame with a baseball theme running around the edges. I shut Pratt’s door behind me and sprinkle rock salt after I smudge it from top to bottom.

  I’m tempted to dump all the alcohol down the drain and throw out the bottles. I’m not opposed to a beer now and then, but it’s not called the devil’s brew for nothing. Instead, I make three cross signs on the door with Agustina’s potion and say a prayer. That will have to do.

  Then I go to the fourth floor and check the surveillance cabinet. It’s humming along nicely and the lock is keeping its secrets secure. Pratt never answered me when I ask him what he didn’t want me to see. If the footage is written over every night, what’s the problem? What’s going on in this house that he doesn’t want me to find out? Those are more thoughts I don’t want in my head just hours before a séance.

  I place my hand on the cabinet door and close my eyes. My skin crawls and I hear Jankovic’s voice: Választott. Chosen demon footage? Weird.

  By two o’clock, I’ve smudged each room in the house and crossed the doors with the wine potion. Jankovic locked the door to her bedroom or shrine; I’m not really sure what purpose the room serves. I sprinkle some extra rock salt for protection and something for her to remember me by. If I’m lucky, she’s seen me fo
r the last time.

  I stop for a break and take Blake’s photo with me to the guest house. I’d asked for the last photo taken of the child. If this is it, I’m sad for both of them. He’s probably nine or ten in the photo, several years before his death. His hair is the same shade of coarse brown as his father’s, his eyes are the same steely blue. His wide smile reveals a missing front tooth and a trophy is held tightly at his side.

  After lunch, I sit on the sofa and meditate with the photo in my lap and my hand resting on the glass. “What is your message, Blake?”

  I can hear the chanting from the beach and smell the fire, see the orange embers in the sky. “What is your message?” I ask the embers. Anger, depression, confusion. Destruction, stress, addiction. I already know these things of his father.

  “Blake, you are forgiven. You were a child and didn’t know better. Forgive yourself. You’re in spirit again. A lesson learned; a soul’s choice. Know that you are pure light and love. Blake, how can I help you find closure? Give me a message.”

  When I open my eyes, I see that over an hour has passed. I’m staring out the huge picture window at the wild, free, and raging ocean whose waves crash high over the rocks below the cliff.

  I lift my fingers from the glass and look down at the boy to find myself staring into the eyes of Douglas Pratt.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  §

  I take the photo back to the house and put it in the middle of Pratt’s desk before stomping out and heading to the beach. I’m mad at him and myself, but mostly him.

  After seeing Pratt’s face, I’d opened the frame so I could see if anything was written on the back of the photo. Douglas Pratt. Razorback Little League Champions 1981. He gave me a photo of himself. The man’s incapable of telling the truth. It isn’t until I’m walking on the beach that it occurs to me he doesn’t have any photos of his son. I almost feel sorry for him again.

  One wife left, one died, his son committed suicide. He either can’t stand the pain or he’s trying to erase it, or something worse. Either way, I shouldn’t be doing a séance with the man. I’ll be opening the door to spirits who might not remember him fondly. Maybe Blake wasn’t hoping to have me join him on the other side, maybe he was trying to kill me for attempting to help his father.