The Reckoning

Edith vanished and in her place appeared a young woman in a pioneer outfit. She knelt in front of me, sobbing.

“Oh, praise God. Praise God. I have been waiting so long. Please, help me, child. I need-”

A young man in a ripped and filthy denim jacket grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her back. “Listen, kid, I’ve been stuck here since-”

A heavyset man gave the young guy a shove, sending him flying. “Have some respect for your elders, punk.”

“Thanks.” I looked past him to the pioneer woman, cringing and sobbing. “How can I-?”

“I was talking about me,” the man said. “I was here first.”

“No, you weren’t. I’ll get to you.” I tried leaning around the man.

“You want me to take a number? Fine.” He grabbed the pioneer woman and threw her. She disappeared. “Whoops. Guess she left. My turn.”

I leaped to my feet. “Don’t you-”

“Don’t I what?” He lunged forward. His face went purple, swelling to twice its size, eyes bugging out, black tongue lolling. I reeled back. The guy in the dirty jacket jumped behind me. I spun out of his way.

“Sorry, kid.” He smiled, showing rows of rotting teeth. “Didn’t mean to spook you. Spook you. Get it?” He laughed. I backed away, but he closed the gap between us. “Got a problem you can help with, kid. See, I’m stuck here in limbo, on account of a few things I didn’t do. Bum rap, you know? So I’m trapped here, and I need you to do something for me.”

“And me!” a voice behind me shouted.

“And me!”

“Me!”

“Me!”

I turned slowly and found myself surrounded by ghosts of all ages, at least a dozen of them, pressing closer; eyes wild; hands reaching for me; voices rising, shouting, demanding, snarling. The heavyset guy who’d flashed his death mask planted himself in front of me.

“Don’t just stand there, brat. This is your job. Your duty. To help the dead.” He shoved his face down to mine, purple and swollen again. “So start helping.”

“We will,” said a voice to my left.

I turned. The mob of ghosts parted. Margaret stood there, a saucer filled with dried plants in one hand, a burning match in the other.

“You’re scaring the child,” she said calmly. “Come over here and speak to me instead. I can help.”

The ghosts swarmed her. Then they screamed. They howled. They cursed. And they began to fade, fighting and struggling and cursing some more, but continuing to vanish until only Margaret was standing there, blowing smoke from the burning plants in the saucer.

“Wh-what is that?” I asked.

“Vervain. It banishes ghosts. Most of them, anyway. There’s always a stubborn one.”

She strode past me and I turned to see a grandfatherly old man backing away.

“No, please,” he said. “I wasn’t bothering the child. I was only waiting my turn.”

Margaret kept advancing. Tori scuttled out of her way, looking around in confusion, only able to see and hear us.

“Please,” the man said. “This might be my only chance. It’s just a message.”

He looked past Margaret to me and his eyes glistened with tears. “Please, dear. Just one moment of your time.”

A creepy, queasy feeling snaked through me. This felt so wrong-a grown man begging me for a favor.

“Hold on,” I said to Margaret. “Can I hear what he wants to say? Please? He wasn’t one of the ones scaring me.”

Margaret hesitated, then waved for the man to continue quickly.

He took a moment to compose himself, then said, “I died two years ago. I fell asleep in my car and it went off a cliff. They never found it and they said…they said I took off, left my wife, kids, grandkids. All I need for you to do is send them a letter. Just tell them where they can find the car.”

“I have to write this down,” I said, turning to Margaret. I was sure she had paper in the car. Even a cell phone would do-I could text in a message-but she shook her head.

“Wait,” Tori said. She pulled a few pieces of folded paper and a pen from her pocket. “I was going to make a list of stuff we need. Andrew said someone would go shopping for us later.”

I took down his wife’s address and the location of the car. It didn’t make sense to me-roads and landmarks I wouldn’t know-but the ghost said his wife would understand. He said to add a note from him, that he loved her and would never have left her.

“She might not believe I sent a message from the grave, but she’ll look anyway. I won’t take up any more of your time. Thank you.”

Before I could say a word, he disappeared.

“Now that was cool,” Tori said, taking the pencil and extra paper from me.

As I folded the page with the information, Margaret reached for it.

I handed it over. “I guess it’ll have to be mailed from someplace far from here, huh? Just in case.”

“It’s not being mailed.”

“What?” Tori and I said in unison.

“You never promise to deliver a message for a ghost, Chloe. Never.”

“But-”

Her hand cupped my elbow, voice going gentle. “You can’t. If you do, then what you saw today will be only the begi

I looked up into her face and briefly saw someone else there, a younger, sadder woman. I realized that what seemed like cold efficiency was self-preservation-the tough, no-nonsense necromancer, her heart hardened to the pleas of the dead. Was this my fate? Toughen up until I could throw that note in the trash and never think of it again? I didn’t ever want to be that way. Ever.

“Are you okay?” Tori whispered.

Margaret had moved away and was dumping out the ashes of the vervain. Tori touched my arm. I realized I was shaking. I wrapped my arms around myself. “I should have brought a sweater.”

“It’s still chilly when the sun goes in, isn’t it?” Margaret said as she came back to us.

She held up a baggie of dried stuff.

“Vervain,” she said. “I’ll give you some back at the house. Obviously you could use it.”

She tried to smile, but she was out of practice and only managed a twist of her lips.

“Thank you,” I said, and surprised myself by meaning it.

“Are you up to some more work?” she asked.

I glanced down at the bag she held, like it was a prize for a lesson well done, and as much as I wanted to quit, that eager-to-please part of me blurted, “Sure.”

Twelve

“IT’S EASY TO SUMMON ghosts who want to be called,” Margaret said, “but sometimes you need to speak to a reluctant one. While we try to respect the wishes of the dead, you’ve just seen the importance of maintaining the upper hand in the necromancer-ghost relationship. Some really believe we exist only to help them, and we must quickly disabuse them of that notion. Being firm in your summoning is one way to establish the proper reputation.”

Margaret took the lead, going from grave to grave. We visited four ghosts, chatting with them for a minute, before she found one that didn’t want to answer her summons.

She let me try. The ghost didn’t answer me either.

“Do you know how to increase the power of the summons?” Margaret asked me.

“Concentrate harder?”

“Exactly. Slowly increase your concentration and sharpen your focus. Start doing it now. Gradually, gradually…”

We kept on like this for a while, Margaret getting frustrated by how slowly I was ramping up the juice. Finally, I felt an i

She sighed. “I understand you’re nervous, Chloe. Whoever raised those bodies has frightened you.”

“I raised-”

“That’s not possible. Yes, you are clearly a powerful young necromancer, but without the proper tools and rituals, you just can’t do it. I don’t even have the ingredients with me.”