DoubleDown V (28 page)

When Penelope paused, Karen knew she was being baited, but she still had to ask. “Where?”

“Fredrick Memorial Gardens in Gaffney, just north of us. It’s large but also isolated, outside the city limits. It’s ungated. I’ve spent some time scoping it out, and there seem to be no nightly patrols. It’s also deep, so if we can find what we need far enough from the road, no one will ever know we’re there.”

“And what if I can’t locate a seer there, or what if I do and she’s buried next to the road?”

“Then we’ll search elsewhere. But we need to start soon so we can ensure we have what we need in time.”

Karen took a deep breath, glanced at Bobby, then back to his mother. “Fine, tomorrow is Saturday and I’m all caught up on my schoolwork so we can go then.”

Penelope nodded. “We’ll start early, and if we get lucky and find what we’re looking for, we can go back sometime after midnight to get what we need.”

*   *   *

They weren’t alone in the cemetery Saturday morning. Several people were visiting graves, with more just wandering, using the cemetery as a place to walk. Which was good—it made them seem less suspicious.

They decided the smartest thing to do was to split up since they had so much ground to cover. Penelope took the west end of the cemetery, Karen and Bobby the east. Karen didn’t ask Bobby to come with her; he just fell in step beside her, and that thrilled her. Plus she was happy to be with Bobby, away from his mother, so they could talk.

“Is everything okay?” Karen asked as they walked among the tombstones, Karen opening up her senses for any traces of the residue Penelope had described.

“Everything’s fine,” Bobby said, but for a ghost he was a terrible bluffer.

“Really, because you and your mom just seem…I don’t know, strained.”

Bobby shrugged. “I guess being dead doesn’t mean you stop having arguments with your mother.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

He seemed to consider for a moment. “It’s just…she clings to me so hard. She’s been clinging to me ever since…no, it was before the accident. She was always overprotective, never wanted to let me out of her sight. After I died, oddly it became worse. Maybe because she felt she wasn’t protective enough, didn’t keep me safe, so I’ve become her obsession. Sometimes I just wish she’d let me go.”

Karen paused, turning to him with a frown. “Let you go?”

“If the spell works, and I’m alive again, I cringe to think how she’ll be with me. I’ll be in Pete’s body, which after the coma is sure to have plenty of problems. My mother will be my nursemaid. She’ll probably never let me out of the house. I just want to be free.”

“You’ll have me,” Karen said, not daring to meet his gaze. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Bobby smiled at her, that bright smile that lit up his whole face, but she sensed nothing but sadness from him. “You’ll do anything to help me, won’t you?”

“Absolutely,” she said without hesitation.

“Good to know. Because if this doesn’t work, I want you to let me go too.”

“What?”

“If this spell doesn’t work, I don’t want to be stuck here as a ghost forever. I want you to promise that you’ll find a way to release me. From this existence, this mortal plane or whatever you’d call it.”

“But Bobby, you can’t be serious?”

“This isn’t a life,” he said, pleading. “I don’t eat, I don’t sleep, I can’t even read a book because I can’t turn the pages. I’m just always here, here but not here, and despite being with my mother, it’s lonely.”

“But I’m your friend now.”

“Yes, and I care for you. But what kind of relationship could we have, me being dead and all? Even if we could make it work, eventually you’ll grow old and die, and then I’ll be alone again.”

“Or maybe we’ll be together.”

Bobby laughed with no humor. “I already told you, I can’t see other spirits. Maybe you’ll go off to wherever Pete went, or maybe you’ll still be here, but we won’t be able to see each other. Whatever the case, I want you to promise me that you won’t let me stay like this forever. Please!”

“Bobby, I can’t—”

“
Please
! If you love me, you won’t let me linger on like this. If the spell doesn’t work, promise you’ll find a way to set me free.”

“I…I promise.”

*   *   *

Karen looked at the closest tombstone. She’d been walking for almost an hour and still hadn’t found exactly what she’d been looking for.

For that matter, she wasn’t sure she even knew for herself what she was seeking. The one she was looking at now had a woman’s name followed by:

Born July 4, 1960, Died December 10, 1999

Beloved Mother and Artist

She Brought Life to Those Close to Her

A gust of wind blew a long strand of her hair so it covered her view. She pushed it back behind her ear.

“Is that the one?”

The voice behind her was gentle but insistent.

“Are you getting tired of looking?”

Karen smiled as she turned to face Bobby. He stood a respectful two feet behind her, as if he was trying to give her the privacy while still being there if she needed emotional support.

Not bloody likely
, she thought.

 “Sorry, I didn’t intend to sound impatient,” he said. “Take all the time you want. Time is the one thing both of us have lots of.”

Karen nodded.

“I just need to find the right one.”

Bobby smiled. “I know. Really, it’s okay.”

“I’m not sure anything will be okay ever again.”

Bobby didn’t answer. What could he say to that?

Karen was determined not to drop a single tear. She tried to detach herself and concentrate on Bobby—dark brown eyes, pitch curly black hair, dimples she knew would appear when he smiled.

She exhaled and turned to the headstone. “I wonder what kind of art she practiced.”

“Do you want to check? You can Google it on your iPhone. Shouldn’t be hard to find if she really accomplished anything.”

Karen shook her head. “In a way I’d rather imagine my own truth. I think she assembled collages from nature, picking up stray oak and maple leaves wherever she went and then spending hours rearranging them to tell a story.”

She knelt and touched the granite stone, feeling the etchings of some of the letters.

“This isn’t the one,” she finally said.

Bobby joined her as she walked past a few more tombstones. None of them interested her. Only a few had called to her so far.

The sun was setting, casting a long shadow through the graveyard. Karen knew Bobby wanted her to find the damned stone so they could leave, but it wasn’t that easy. It had to be the right one.

If she couldn’t find it, she’d come back tomorrow, and the day after that.

“Did you know there’s two thousand people buried here?” asked Bobby.

She ignored him. A cool breeze blew, and she felt goose bumps rise on her arms. All of a sudden she moved to her right and fell to her knees in front of an old weathered stone.

“This is the one,” she said. “I found her.”

“Are you sure?” Bobby asked. “What makes this one any different than the others?”

“It’s just different. Your mother was right, that I’d know it when I felt it. And I’m feeling it now. Go get her.”

And with that, Bobby was gone. Karen waited, kneeling by the grave, feeling power buffeting her like a wind. The tombstone identified the deceased as Rebecca Louise Yomans, died only five years ago at the age of 27. Although Karen couldn’t possibly know, she got a flash of something that told her Rebecca had killed herself. Perhaps the power—a curse, as Penelope had said many who had the ability thought of it—had been too much for her.

She didn’t move as she heard footsteps approaching from behind, and then Penelope was kneeling next to her.

“This is it,” Karen said. “I’m certain of it.”

“I believe you,” Penelope said. “Even I can feel something. This must have been a powerful woman.”

“Very powerful.”

Penelope scanned their surroundings. “This is perfect, better than I could have imagined. We’re near the back end of the cemetery, far from the road. We’ll come back tonight and get what we need. You should rest. It’s going to be a long, strenuous night.”

Karen looked over at the librarian. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be ready.”

Karen thought she was ready, but she didn’t know if anything could have truly prepared her for the task at hand. In addition to the unshakable fear that they were going to be caught in the act, there was also the sheer exhausting strain of the work. She and Penelope working together with shovels, taking periodic breaks, still left the muscles of Karen’s arms trembling and feeling like they’d been liquefied. The work took several hours. Luckily the weather had turned mild in the past few weeks, otherwise the ground would have been frozen and the work much harder.

As they came closer to unearthing Rebecca Yomans’ coffin, the reality of what they were doing started to sink in. They were digging up a dead woman, intending to steal her skull. Whatever their reason, it still felt macabre and sick.

When they finally got to the coffin itself, Penelope sent Karen out of the grave, for which Karen was immensely grateful. Still, when Penelope pried open the lid, the smell struck Karen like a blow to the gut. After five years, who knew the stench of decomposition would be so potent. Karen clasped a hand over her mouth and turned away, barely managing to keep from vomiting on her shoes. Bobby stood nearby, unable to help but offering soothing words of comfort that failed to sooth or comfort.

Karen didn’t look, but she heard as Penelope detached the skull with the shovel, and she almost voided the contents of her stomach again. Penelope crawled out of the grave like some movie zombie, carrying her bundle wrapped in a dark blanket that she deposited into a bowling ball bag she’d brought. It would have been laughable had it not been so ghastly.

The two women began shoveling the dirt back into the grave, which went much faster. If anyone really scrutinized the grave, they would see that the earth had been recently turned, but the women did not concern themselves with that. Once the hole was filled in, they tamped the ground down as much as possible. The sky was just beginning to lighten when they got into Penelope’s car and drove away.

*   *   *

The spell worked and Bobby was restored in Pete’s body. Karen found it strange to see him staring at her out of another boy’s eyes, but she knew it was him. She could feel it. Finally they were able to be together, and the way he caressed her skin, kissed her neck…it left her moaning with pleasure and begging for more.

Their first night together, her first time with anyone, he entered her gently, opening her slowly. She arched her back and urged him deeper. He complied, nibbling her ears as this thrusts came faster and harder.

Karen could feel her climax building, about to explode, when a putrid smell invaded her nostrils. She opened her eyes….

And screamed.

Bobby was on top of her but no longer in Pete’s body. He was in his own body…decaying, eye sockets empty, maggots squirming out of his mouth and falling onto her face, bones protruding through graying, flaky skin. She tried to push the corpse away but didn’t have the strength. Bobby was still inside her, and pleasure turned into pain as the dead boy thrust deeper, causing her to unleash an unearthly howl—

*   *   *

Karen awoke, her scream following her out of the dream. After their late-night adventure, Karen had crashed at Penelope’s house, falling asleep on the sofa without even showering or changing out of her grave-caked clothing. She checked her watch and found it was almost six. She’d slept the day away.

“Are you okay?”

The voice startled Karen, and she let out a high-pitched yelp. Turning, she found Penelope sitting across the room in the recliner. The room was dark except for the light bleeding in from the hallway, but the librarian’s face remained in shadow. Bobby was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m fine,” Karen said. “Just a bad dream is all.”

“It’s understandable. I know what we had to do went against everything you would have learned from a good Christian upbringing, but I assure you the worst is behind us. Everything else needed for the spell I can procure myself.”

“And what about the spell? It’s almost time, don’t you think you should start telling me some specifics of what we’ll be doing?”

Penelope hesitated.

“I know after what Pete did you’re nervous about telling me too much too soon, but I assure you I won’t jump the gun.”

Another brief hesitation, then Penelope nodded. “One mistake Pete made was not to wait for the Spring Equinox. It’s not writ in stone that the spell can only be performed at that time, but it is a time of renewal, when a witch’s powers are at their peak. It can only help ensure success. So on that night we will gather around Pete. I know the staff at the hospital fairly well and feel confident I can get them to give us a little alone time with him. We will have to anoint his body with the potion I will prepare and chant certain incantations.”