Chapter 6

We're in our new apartment. It's wonderful to have our own space and to let the boys run wild like boys do. We have a swimming pool and a playground. We have movie parties and living room picnics because we don't have a couch yet, and we're so happy.

I know I should be proud that we've made such a large venture out on our own, but I'm terrified . What if I don't get an amazing job for next year? (I just interviewed at First Coast Christian for an English position.) What if my book never sells and I have one more failure under my belt? What if someone breaks in to our little apartment, and our murder story ends up on Dateline? What if I can't make it on my own? What if I spend everything sipping herbal tea, watching Netflix, and talking to my cat?

This is why I write - to avoid the scariness of reality. At least in the books, I can control things.

I haven't worked the necromancer book much lately because I've actually been busy rewriting that other one, the one I'll eventually get paid for, but I can't let my four fans down. The necromancer must live! She must keep going or the apocalypse will be here before we know it.

Chapter 6

            Mom wakes me from the dream. I rub my hands over my face, taking the time to determine if I’m living in the vision or here in reality. I crack my stiff neck as I sit up to look around. We’re still in the pimpmobile, but we’re not parked at our house like I expected. The enormous building in front of me is ancient, with crumbling coquina walls and a wooden drawbridge. It’s been so long since I’ve been here that it takes me a moment to realize we’re at the Castillo de San Marco, St. Augustine’s historical fort.

The gray coquina fort sprawls across the land in front of the inlet waterway. The walls are thick and sturdy, but large dints are carved out from cannonball fire and centuries of withstanding hurricanes.

            My first necromancy experience was here, deep in the dungeons, where I was on a tour with my father. Every other necromancer in our family didn’t start seeing the dead until they’d reached puberty. But I was three years old.

I remember screaming about the bloody man, the ghost, and everyone staring at me, Dad snatching me up and carrying me out. He spanked me once we were out of the crowds’ view. Then he set me down on a bench in the middle of the fort’s open courtyard. He pointed his finger in my face, warning me that I must never do that again. That I was a bad girl.

            “You’re crying,” Mom says, pulling me out of the memory.

I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand. “I was having a nightmare.”

            “About what?”

            I glance at the fort. “That the Purple Ladies discontinued their Luscious Lipstick line. Could you imagine if that happened? What would the world do?”

            Mom brushes the damp hair from my face. “What did you really dream about?”

            “Nothing. What are we doing here?”

            “I got an emergency Freeing call on the way home.”

            I glance at the dashboard clock. “It’s one in the morning and I have school tomorrow. The ghosts can wait.”

            “No, they can’t. We need the money. And I thought this would be a perfect time to let you work a ritual on your own, and get some practice.”

            I want to argue, but it won’t do any good. The sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can go home and get into bed.  “What are we dealing with?” I ask.

“The fort’s head park ranger said the water in the moat has turned to blood, there was an attack, and the governor is visiting tomorrow. They’re trying to get more funding and don’t want to make a bad impression.”

            “It might just be pollution. Red tide. I saw something about it on the news once.”

            “It isn’t red tide. It’s blood,” Mom says, like bloody water is more logical than pollution. “It has to be the ghost of General Hernandez and all those Indians he killed when he went nuts. You remember our local history, don’t you? The water turns red every ten years on the anniversary of the Natives’ deaths. If we don’t take care of them tonight, we might have to wait another decade to talk to Hernandez.”

            I hope I’m thousands of miles away from Ravines ten years from now, and a million miles away from my Freeing powers and the Mark on my wrist, hidden by my new birthday watch. But I’ll never be rid of it. I can’t cut a piece of myself away, can I? I’m stuck with seeing the dead for as long as I live.

I follow Mom up the cracked cement path that leads to the fort, but stumble as I cross the bridge. With all the battles fought here and epidemics that swept through the tight and unsanitary quarters, the fort is elbow to elbow with spirits. This is why I avoid St. Augustine as much as I can. Whenever I’m here I feel like a severe claustrophobic getting on the subway in New York City at rush hour. The whispering of the dead smoothers me, causing me to fall to my knees.

“Are you okay?” Mom asks “You’re as white as a ghost.” She giggles because she loves telling people this because ghosts aren’t white at all.

            The sprits are everywhere, standing like sentinels on the lookout towers, sitting on the rim of the high walls watching me, bombarding me with a thousand pleas for help. I clamp my hands over my ears, and go into the fetal position.

            “You have to block them out,” Mom says. “Think of something that makes you feel alive.”

            I think of Blake, laughing and talking with him. Kissing him. Then for some reason the image of the Reaper pops into my head. He smiles at me, says my name, and I can almost feel the heat he puts off. The screams quiet, fading into a dull roar, like the crash of the waves against the coquina walls of the fort. Soon the ghosts are nothing but a buzz in my ear, no louder than white noise.

            How can a dead man make me feel alive?

            “There. Much better,” Mom says as she helps me up. “What’d you think about?”

            “None of your business.”

            She smirks at me. “It was Blake, wasn’t it?”

            “Oh, look! There’s the park ranger.” I wave over to the ranger like we’re long lost friends because I don’t want to confirm Mom’s suspensions, or tell her that the thought of the Reaper also calmed me. 

            “Hey, Judy,” the young woman says. The ranger has red hair and pretty pale skin and is maybe three of four years older than me. It’s the middle of the night, but she’s dressed in her full khaki ranger uniform. “This must be your daughter, Cass. I’m Rachael. I suppose your mother has briefed you on the situation.” Before I can say yes, she continues, hitting us with a full-scale ranger narration. “Over two hundred years ago, during the second Spanish occupation, there was a land dispute between the Spaniards and the Timicuan tribe.”

            “Let me guess. The Spanish just took whatever land they wanted,” I respond.

            “Yes,” she says, impressed, like I’ve answered the hardest history essay question ever. “The Timicuan chief and the general made a treaty, promising the Timicuans property where the Fountain of Youth flowed. But instead of fulfilling his end of the bargain, General Hernandez took the natives out to the middle of Matanzas Bay—Matanzas means massacre in Spanish, by the way—he reneged on the agreement. One by one, he slit the throats of the tribe members and tossed them into the water at high tide.”

            “That’s why the water in the moat and in the Bay is red,” Mom says.

            “Who was attacked by the ghosts?” I ask.

            “A tourist from Holland was strangled by Hernandez this afternoon. He’s recovering in the hospital right now. A school group of fifth graders witnessed the whole thing.”

            “All of them saw Hernandez? He’s pulling off a full-bodied apparition to thirty people? He’s very powerful.” Now Mom is impressed.

            “And the red water in the moat is freaking everyone else out,” Rachel says. Governor Cummings will be here first thing in the morning.”

            “Don’t worry. We’ll exorcise your demons,” Mom says, smiling at her own joke. “Should we lock up when we’re done?”

            “No. I’ll be waiting in my car. Just let me know when the ghost is gone.”

            Mom salutes Rachael and I follow her out of the fort. We walk down the sloping hill at the back side until we reach the coquina seawall. Mom sets up a circle of candles and places a ceremonial bowl in the middle. Then she looks to me. “Call the Timicuans.”

            I hesitate. I’m usually the blood donor, but that doesn’t mean I love slicing into my own skin. I pull the iron knife from the sheath below my shirt and draw the blade across my palm, wincing at the pain. The bayberry tea helps with the healing, but nothing eases the shock of pain. I squeeze my hand into a fist. The blood runs down my wrist, dripping onto the seawall below my feet.

         “Blood for blood, life for life. Come to me. Accept my sacrifice.”

The second I’m done, the dead rise. Some of the Indians pop out of the water like possessed sharks, while others slither up like electric eels. They pull themselves from the sea and climb the wall. No matter how they come, or how used I am to things like this, it’s disconcerting.

            Since they weren’t dead when they were tossed into the bay, their bodies are bloated. Most have a red arch across their neck. The man dressed in a headdress of bright blue and green feathers is covered in knife wounds, the black blood still oozing from every cut. He lunges for me, hands outstretched in claws.

            “You!” he screams. “You will pay for our deaths. My entire tribe wiped out for you selfish white men.” His English is broken, but I have no trouble getting what he means. He pulls a bow from behind his back, notches the arrow on the string, and sends it whizzing past me.

            Not expecting to be attacked, I don’t have the chance to brace myself, and I fall backwards. He leaps for me, and from my position on the ground, I shove my iron knife into his stomach. He stays suspended above me, stunned. Then he vaporizes, but not before coating me with a sheen of his blood.

            I roll to my side and spit out the blood that had dripped into my mouth. I sit on the rough coquina wall, wishing I wasn’t out in the middle of a school night fighting disgruntled Native Americans. With the point of my knife, I pick at the small shells in the wall, flicking some of them off. Across the inlet the lighthouse directs ships home. There are a few sail boats drifting in low tide, waiting for the water to rise and take them on to better destinations. I wish I had something to guide me away from here, away from all this death.

            A rush of icy winds hits my back, causing my ponytail to swirl around my face. I shift my weight to turn around, but before I can look back, I’m pushed off the seawall. On my hands and knees, I hit the packed, wet sand below. A second later, Mom lands next to me, except she’s face-first.

            She sits up and wipes the sand from her mouth, causing her lipstick to smear across her cheek. “Now I’m pissed. We’re not doing this the nice way. No talking him down or showing him the light. We’re going to find him, trap him in the conjure circle, and send him back to Purgatory.”

            “You’ve always told me that ritual for that was too dangerous.”

            “Not now with your powers in full effect. You’ll do all the heavy necromancy.”

            I stand and pull Mom to her feet. “There’s a reason I don’t wear makeup,” I say, pointing to her mouth. “Especially for ghost hunting.”

            She pulls a compact mirror from her purple pocket. “Oh, no! Just look at this.” She rubs the smudged lipstick away with the back of her hand, and reapplies a fresh coat of Whimsically Wine. Then at a run, Mom takes off, across the beach, up the stairs, and over the seawall. I have no choice but to follow her.

            Once we are back on the fort grounds, she says, “I just saw him slip into an upstairs window in the fort.”

            We run up the walkway, pausing at the ranger’s car. “What’s the alarm code?” I yell.

“7856,” Rachael says. She rolls her window up, like the thin sheet of glass will keep out a poltergeist.

Mom punches in the numbers and the drawbridge lowers. We’re met by a line

of dead Spanish soldiers who are blocking our way. We could just run right through them, but going through a spirit always makes me feel light headed. 

“Move!” I holler. They looked shocked for a moment, but do what I command.

We run through the courtyard and to the second floor, once we get there we realize there are no rooms, just an open deck with watchtowers at every corner.

“Call him again,” Mom says.

I take a deep breath and pull the knife over my palm again. “Away from this world, you must turn. From ashes you came, to dust you shall return.”

He doesn’t show. We wait a full five minutes, and nothing happens. “That’s was anti-

climatic.” I say. “Did I do something wrong?’

“No, he’s just being a jerk. The really bad spirits don’t have to come if they don’t want to. There is a way to make them obey, but it would probably kill the both of us.”

“Where could he be?” I ask. “We’ve looked everywhere.”

“I forgot,” Mom says, stopping short. “There’s rumored to be a secret room here. Maybe that’s where he is?”

“Do you know where it is?” I ask.

“She shakes her head. No one does. The staff at the fort have been looking for it for years, and no one can find it.” Mom sits on one of the benches in the lower courtyard. “The sun will be up soon, and you have school. I’ll put up a protection against malicious spirits. That should be enough until we can get back here and exorcise Hernandez back to Purgatory. I’ll Free the Native Americans, too. Go on home.” Mom says, tossing me the car keys. “I’ll have Rachael give me a ride.” Mom says before disappearing back into the fort.

I slide behind the wheel of the pimpmobile. As I reach up to adjust the rearview mirror, I catch a glimpse of the Reaper who is sitting in my backseat. His cold, grey eyes fix on mine as he leans forward to grab my shoulder.