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

  “Shame about what?”

  “Shem. It’s Chinook. Means shame.”

  My Navajo grandmother knows more than all the books ever written about the Native Americans.

  She places her fingers over the tea grounds. “Shem is not the white man’s kind of shame. It is much more than a loss of dignity and honor. It is the death of the soul. What’s the person’s name?” she asks.

  “Pratt. Dr. Douglas Pratt.”

  “Pride.” She laughs. “Worse than shame. Not our people’s fault.” She pushes the tea grounds away. “His fate is now his heavy burden. You must find your way through his deceit to help him.”

  “I think he’s attracted a dark spirit,” I say. “Either him or his daughter. Both have seen the figure of a man at night. The doctor thinks he’s possessed. Sounds like he might be.”

  “Half the people on earth are possessed these days. Black energy is everywhere. Too much fighting and arguing. The collective soul is bleeding. Dark spirits feed off the conflict and their evil spreads like a plague. Those who wage war in their hearts think they’re the ones in control. The Great Spirit turns its back so as not to watch their stupidity.”

  She takes my hand. “Watch your own words, child. I know you won’t. You have inner turmoil that you should not take with you. Make peace before you go. Stop fighting your true destiny. Earthbound spirits will always be. It is the living whose time is limited.”

  “I’m not sure I’m going,” I say, ignoring what she really means. “We don’t have an agreement yet.”

  “You’ll go.” She closes her eyes for a few seconds. “Child, hear me. When you are old and alone, you will look back and ask why you made the choices you did. It does you no good to hide your pain from your own heart. Doing that is the same thing as plunging a knife into your chest.”

  Chapter Five

  §

  I get chills when Maybelle symbolically plunges the knife into my chest. She likes to spout her wisdom from little bits and pieces she plucks from my own mind while pretending she’s getting messages straight from the Great Spirit, or so I like to think.

  She finally agrees that a dark spirit is at work in the Pratt house, but says Pratt isn’t possessed by anything unearthly. She insists I visit Agustina before I leave.

  I check my messages and see I have a text from Pratt. He’s provided his email address and asked that I comply with a minimum of his requests to make this utterly alarming and distressing situation bearable­– that’s the short version of what he wrote. He unilaterally scheduled a telephone conference for eight o’clock tonight. I like him even less than I did this morning.

  While I’m reading the doctor’s demands, Maybelle is on the phone with Agustina making me an appointment. Seems like everyone is busy living my life.

  Agustina Cortez is Maybelle’s best friend and after Maybelle, my most respected teacher. She’s a curandero– a healer. In the Latino culture, there are those who believe that illness in a person is due to entrapment of an evil spirit. Illness of the soul is treated so the body can heal itself. I wish more people thought this way, because it’s true.

  I’m looking forward to seeing Agustina even though I didn’t have a say in the matter. It’s been months since my last treatment: a massage and ritual cleansing with herbs, sage smoke, and a raw egg. It sounds strange, but it’s immensely relaxing and purging. Something I agree I need, although I’m suspicious of Maybelle’s insistence that I go as soon as possible. She practically pushes me out the door.

  Maybelle told Agustina to make me a hechizo– a spell– one of protection, or so she says. I’m not one to put spells on my clients, but my grandmother thinks it is better to be safe than cursed, and I again agree with her.

  I have just enough time to go home and send the contract to Pratt before I have to be at Agustina’s house.

  In my email to the man, I say he can tell others I’m his niece– although with my Navajo DNA, good luck with that one. It was his idea so I’ll let him explain it. Despite what he wants, I’m not changing my name or getting on an airplane. As Maybelle is fond of saying, flight is for the birds and the sky gods.

  I ask him to send photos as soon as possible of all the places he and his daughter saw the apparition. Then I say I’ll leave early tomorrow morning if he returns the signed contract and makes his payment.

  Before I leave for Agustina’s, I print Pratt’s photo from the hospital website. She’s better than me and Maybelle combined at reading images. Just as I’m walking out the door, my phone rings.

  I’m thinking it’s Pratt; I’ve got this nagging feeling the man is going to change his mind. Maybe that feeling is hope. It’s not him. It’s Maybelle and she’s checking to make sure that I get to my appointment on time.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do?” I ask, and she laughs– a nervous, guilty laugh. She wants me to pick up ice cream for her after I’m done. She doesn’t eat ice cream. I tell her I won’t have time, and she tells me to get strawberry.

  Levi’s car is in plain view some fifty yards after I turn onto the dirt road that leads to Agustina’s house. Maybelle’s meddling handiwork.

  I pull to the side of the road and contemplate turning around, but I wouldn’t do that to Agustina and I know she didn’t do this to me. The chance of Maybelle answering her phone so I can tell her what I think of her setting me up is zero. She’s getting vanilla ice cream for this.

  I’m five minutes early. That means Levi will be walking out of Agustina’s place any second. I step on the gas and head to the side of her house. A yard full of chickens scatter in all directions while loudly proclaiming their disapproval. I may as well have brought a megaphone to announce my arrival.

  With the engine off, I slide down in the driver’s seat then listen for Levi to come out of the house, start his car’s engine, and drive away. According to my phone, it’s two minutes after my appointment time, three minutes, four minutes, five. My phone rings and I jump, knock it to the floor, grab it, and answer.

  “Hey, Jack. What are you up to?”

  I’ve got my phone to my ear, but his voice is clearer outside the jeep. I disconnect and lower the window.

  “What are you doing hiding on the floorboards?” Levi asks.

  “I’m not hiding. I was looking under the dash. I have a burned out… light or something.”

  “Or something. Agustina’s waiting for you. Better get inside.”

  “That’s what I plan on doing. Don’t need any help with that. Bye, see you later.”

  He stands and looks at me. There’s probably only a foot between us, and a whole universe.

  “Yeah, see you later.”

  He drives away as I fumble with my bag then go to the house. Agustina hugs me when I walk in the door. She’s not a hugger and neither am I. She pulls back, holds my arms tight, studies me with serious eyes. Then she points to the room with the massage table.

  Agustina is a listener. I don’t want her to hear my thoughts, so I take Pratt’s image that I printed and lay it on her work table before she returns. She comes into the room without a word, listening. Then she fills the room with sage smoke and readies a bush size bouquet of basil and rosemary to brush away my illness. She looks at Pratt’s picture a minute or two before she begins the massage.

  “What did you see when you looked at him?”

  “No evil,” she says in her broken English, a condition that comes and goes with her moods. “Lives in head. Out of head.”

  “The photo’s probably old. He’s moved into a new home and thinks he’s possessed by a dark spirit.”

  “Worse than possessed. Thinks he’s possessed. He’s not innocent. It is his fate from long ago. His sadness, regrets, they open door. We all do that when we close the door on those who love us. Who we love as much.”

  These last words I’m sure are not about Pratt. Agustina whacks me a few times in the head with the herbal bouquet: tough love. Then she returns to the massage. She’s silent and just as well bec
ause I’ve had enough of the lectures.

  I fall asleep and wake up from the cold mezcal that she’s spraying over me. She covers me with a blanket then with the smoke of more sage.

  “I make potion and candle to take. You light candle and pray. Pray to Saint Benedict to defeat the devil’s minion. The man’s worse fears come true if you no convince to seek God’s forgiveness. Illness is in head. Too much thinking. Liquid thinking too– no good thinking.” She laughs. Bad medicine, she says in Spanish.

  I get dress feeling better than I have since the last time I was here. Agustina is waiting for me in the living room. She’s holding Pratt’s picture and praying.

  “Smart man, book smart. No real smart,” she says, as I sit beside her. “Hard to convince. Logical mind is wall. So is fear.”

  These last words are for me as well.

  “You will do good as you always do for others. When will you do good for you?”

  “I should be going. I have a phone call scheduled with the man. I want to be ready.”

  “You count time in things you do. Time is now. Each second not in now is less time for you. You look back one day and see it all lies. This life you think is yours, it is not just for you.”

  “I should go,” I say.

  She hands me a jar of red liquid, cactus needles, rosemary, and a chili pepper as well as a white candle and some black copal resin. “Use protection potion to cross the dark energy. Keep candle for your prayers. You use resin after your work is done.” She’s quiet and serious then gets a devilish grin. The first smile I’ve seen since I got here.

  “I pray to Saint Valentine for Maybelle,” she says, looking all pleased with herself.

  “So, it was you. You couldn’t do better than TK Booker?”

  Now she laughs from her belly. “It was bad day. She no can see him anyway.”

  Agustina walks me to the door and takes my hand.

  “I need to make my own decisions,” I say, before she begins. “I know what’s right for me. I know that Levi will be better off with someone who can give him the things he wants in his life.”

  “Things, things,” she says, and spits on the floor. “There too much want of things. Only one thing important. I pray for you to know, pray to the Saints to open your heart. I fear it already too late. Too late for Levi’s heart.”

  Chapter Six

  §

  Pratt calls at precisely eight o’clock. He’s already returned the signed contract and made his payment. He’s also sent me an agenda for our conversation, with bullet points and an itinerary. Definitely living in his head.

  I have Agustina’s protection potion next to me when I answer. My eyes are on the computer screen reading the bullet points. The man has a problem with my name– bullet point one. He suggests Jacqueline and Jackie. We settle on Jack.

  He insists I fly, “time is of the essence.” He ventures a subtle threat of canceling our agreement. I tell him to think it over and let me know in the morning. We compromise on my making the trip in three and a half days instead of four and move on to bullet point three.

  I’m to “present myself” as a university student who is studying history. This will be my cover for the research on the house that I told him would be necessary in order to learn why it’s being haunted. We “concur” that I’ll “pose” as a history buff who’s between jobs.

  I agree that I will not use the terms: ghost, supernatural, paranormal, or haunting once I’m on the property. I also won’t take photos inside the house or of the property or put in writing now or in the future, his name, address, phone number, or other identifying information about him, his house, his staff, or his daughter.

  Pratt tells me I’ll stay in the guest house and have access to the main house per the hours listed on the agenda. I’m to keep the agenda for future reference, but destroy it once the job is completed.

  I will not “converse” with the staff: the housekeeper and his daughter’s nanny and governess regarding the alleged activity. He assures me that because none of the three “servants” are in the house much past eight o’clock in the evening, none have experienced the “phenomenon”– an approved term.

  Thirty minutes into the call, I open the potion jar and discover the liquid is red wine. I’m tempted to drink it, cactus needles and all. I reluctantly agree to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which will be forwarded by Pratt’s attorney and must be returned before my arrival. With that, it appears Pratt is done with me– for now anyway.

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “What about your daughter?” I don’t know why I want to add more rules and regulations to this situation, but other than bringing up her two person staff, Pratt hasn’t mentioned once my own requirement that I talk to her about what she’s seen.

  “Based upon your itinerary, you should arrive no later than four o’clock on Wednesday. Mackenzie will be home on Friday. Therefore, we will have an opportunity to discuss this matter as it pertains to her after dinner. Dinner is at seven o’clock sharp. Please plan to dress appropriately. Also, please call if your travel is disrupted or your arrival time delayed. This would be so much easier if you would agree to fly, but that issue has been resolved so we won’t revisit it. I will speak to you again on Wednesday at seven.”

  I’ve still got the phone to my ear and the potion jar in my hand. The doctor hung up without saying goodbye. I wonder what he considers appropriate dress. I don’t even own a dress, not one that’s still in style anyway.

  Mojo has come to sit beside me. He looks sad. If I could read his mind, which I can’t, I’d say he’s telling me to return the doctor’s money– fast.

  “But it’s right on the ocean,” I tell him. “You’re going to love it. Take a look at this house.” I pull up the old real estate listing on the internet. “It’s beautiful. Look at the ocean, and we get our own guest house. I’m really looking forward to this trip. The Pacific Ocean. How lucky are we?”

  He snorts and walks out of the room.

  I check my email and see that Neil, the living one, sent me a message. He wants me to go to Randy’s website and answer the comments that were posted about the podcast.

  I’m happy to do so. You never know who’ll be haunted next, but I know that someone will since people die every minute of every day. Until artificial intelligence discards the human race, mine is a business that will always have clients.

  Some of the questions are silly, others are crude. Some people are posting their own experiences and novice expertise, a few sound disturbed– though I don’t doubt spirits are the cause of their disturbances. Illness of the soul. I recommend cleansing treatments, but don’t comment further. Who am I to judge the insanity of another?

  It’s almost eleven when I finish packing and hauling everything to the front door for a quick departure in the morning. I get in bed and place my fingers over Pratt’s hospital photo. Right when I’m tuning into his academic attitude, my phone rings. If it’s Pratt calling this late, I’m liking him even less. It’s not.

  “Hi.”

  “Hey, Jack. I heard you’re leaving for another job. Oregon?”

  Las Trebol is a small town, but not as small as it seems sometimes. “Yeah. I’m leaving in the morning.” My voice is hollow, even cold.

  “You sound worried.”

  I’m not and the man knows me well enough to know that’s not how my brain works. It’s an interesting word choice and I wonder whose it is. “No. Just tired. I have to get an early start in the morning.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you go.” He pauses, stuck on his own words. “We had a good time in Cathville. Didn’t we, Jack?”

  “Levi—

  “Okay. I’ll let you go. See you when you get back.”

  Levi disconnects and I’m holding my phone in one hand, Pratt’s photo in the other. “What is it with people these days that they can’t even say goodbye?” I ask Mojo. He doesn’t answer.

  I toss Pratt’s stern face to the nightstand and turn out the light. From the open window,
I can hear the who-hoo’s of gossiping great horned owls as well as their sudden screeches that drown out the crickets.

  A lynx screams and another answers. They sound like a cross between a budget movie monster and a room full of crying babies. Their screams silence the others. Mojo goes to the window and sniffs. I feel like I’m melting into the bed.

  The wild cats’ cries get softer until they sound like ocean waves. The rhythm is hypnotic and I want to sleep, but the waves get louder and I feel like I’m running. I hear voices from the other room. Mojo is beside me, sniffing my hair.

  I’m not asleep or awake, but I am paralyzed– sleep paralysis. Some people think the state is a psychic attack. For many and sometimes for me, it is. It’s also sometimes a portal. One you can choose to take if you can release the fear. Let go, I tell myself.

  I listen to the waves crash against the rocks. I feel my boots on the hard sand and the icy water that chills me as it rushes in and out.

  Tell me your secrets, my mind whispers. A figure appears in the distance, one I guess to be male. Solid and black from head to toe. It seems like he’s walking on a treadmill, going nowhere, but getting closer anyway. I look around for somewhere to go, but there’s only a single path to walk, straight towards him.

  When I become aware of my body, I see I’ve lost my coat and boots. The wind blows through me as if I’m transparent.

  The figure is standing in front of me now. He doesn’t have a face, doesn’t have eyes.

  I hear my voice ask him for his message.

  You aren’t dressed appropriately, he says.

  His words come from every cell in my brain. They’re so loud, I cover my ears and fall to the sand. He takes my hand, pulls me to the water, and I do nothing to resist. When he’s in waist deep, he throws me into the ocean.

  I come up out of the bed and gasp for air. Mojo’s at my side, pawing me. “Nightmare,” I tell him, and lie back down. Nightmare, I tell myself, as I lick the salt from my lips.

  Chapter Seven

  §