Ghostly (Darkly Devoted Book 1) (22 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

From the safety of the window, I waved goodbye to my family as they took the last bit of their belongings from the house and locked the door behind them. They couldn’t see me. I could never do that to them. If they knew I was still around, they would never leave. 

I hoped for a better future for them. One where my father was his happy-go-lucky self again. Maybe he could move on as if the house never existed. I didn’t even want him to come back and visit my grave. No one was there anyway.

I hoped that Dillon would grow up and not forget me, that he would remember the good times before the house and losing Mom. Maybe someday he would have a family of his own and be successful. He deserved it.

The tears slid down my face, slow but painful, as I watched them pull away. Dillon pressed his hand to the window and looked at the house until they were out of sight. I wondered what he was thinking, if he knew I was there.

Cade’s hand was on my shoulder the moment I couldn’t see them anymore, but he didn’t say a word. I looked up at him with sadness, and he looked down at me with love and adoration, something that I was used to but not sure it was appropriate at that moment in time.

The house objected to getting new owners, I felt it. Somehow it radiated off the walls and floors of the home. Whispers traveled throughout the large space, but there was no one there. Even with Cade’s touch, I felt sorrow. It was an uneasy feeling, and I couldn’t help but think we needed to do something.

“Maybe it would be better if we burned down this place.”

He shook his head. “We’ve talked about this.”

“I know, but…I can’t help but think about what will happen to the next people that move in.”

“Who cares? We have each other forever, and we don’t have to worry about anyone changing that.”

“Life isn’t just about us, Cade,” I clarified.

“We’re dead, Briar, just in case you forgot.”

“But I still
feel
alive. Sure, I know I’m not. I know you’re not, but we still walk and talk, and I do what I did when I was alive. I still have a conscience, and I can’t help but think the town would be better without this house here.”

He stepped away from me as if I had said something terrible. Shaking his head, he spoke in a low voice. “You can never say anything like that again.”

I crossed my arms defensively. “I can say whatever I want. If I want to destroy this house so that others can be safe, I will.”

The house groaned; the foundation began to shake. I had to reach out to the wall to steady myself. The lights flickered on and off as violent shakes continued to rack the house. The house was angry, at least that’s what it seemed, and I was terrified. Never had the place seemed more alive, and Cade seemed to be on its side.

He pulled me to him and hid me in the fabric of his shirt. The harder the house shook, the harder he gripped me, until I could feel my skin bruise.

“Cade,” I whispered as I clung to him, “what’s happening?”

“The house wanted you, and now it has you. I’m afraid of what will happen if you defy it.”

With one last groan, the house stopped making any noises.

“Glad that’s over. You wanna go make some masks?”

“Sure.” I nodded and pulled away from him. I ran my hand through my hair nervously. What was I going to do?

Salvation came in the form of Meredith, who snuck over the next day with her witchcraft books. We sat side by side against the old tree in the field behind the house. The warmth of the sun reminded me of better days, even though I hadn’t been out in it much. Our voices were whispered as we huddled close together to keep our conversation as quiet as we could. The ghosts could come out there of course, but I felt like I would know if they did. My connection with the house ran deeper than I wanted it to. Feeling its emotions was the last straw. No matter what Cade said, I was going to figure out something. 

“Just try it.” Meredith peered at me with wide, excited eyes.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Do. It.”

“No, I’m not possessing you. Besides, I don’t even think that I can.”

“I need to see if you can leave the property if you have a body.”

“Meredith, I know you’re all about all this spell stuff, but it won’t be fair to you if I possess you and can’t get out.”

She waved her hand in the air to shut me up. “You won’t get stuck.”

“So, how the hell will I get back out of you?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Even if you have to beat yourself out of me. I’m not worried about it. I trust you.”

“I’m not possessing you, so you’ll just have to find another way to handle it.”

“Fine, but don’t get mad at me if we have to take the hard route.”

As Meredith continued to flip through the pages of her book, I rested my head against the tree and looked up at the sky. I closed my eyes and pretended I was alive. Birds chirped, the wind blew, and I could feel the sun’s rays on me. Whatever we needed to do, other than the possessing, I was game.

“Alright, here we go. So, like, this sounds really hard. I’m not sure if we can find all the elements we need.”

I opened my eyes to look at her. “What do we need?”

She smiled nervously at me. “I don’t want to tell you. I’d really rather try these other things first. You know I’ve never done this before…”

“If you’re scared, we can find someone else.”

“No, I wanna help you with this. I don’t want to include anyone else.”

Leaning over, I read aloud from the book, “‘When the veil between the worlds is thin, the one with the sight will open a portal to the otherworld. Only then will the evil be destroyed.’ Sounds brutal. Isn’t that Halloween though? We’ve already missed it.”

“There’s more.” Meredith pointed to the writing at the bottom of the page. “‘This blood ritual has the potential for sacrifice. The bleeder must reign in their emotions or they will be taken back into the darkness.’ I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“No, I want to do it. This house is evil, and it can’t stay here. When does it say the veil is thin enough?”

Meredith sighed. “The night of the full moon.”

“Shit, that’s tonight.”

She nodded. “So, where do we find someone who has the sight?”

The words resounded in my memory, and my emotions jumbled into something confusing. “I think…I think I have it.”

“Oh no! No, Briar, no. You’ll, uh—”

“Die?” I laughed. “Too late for that.”

“Why do you think you…”

“Cade overheard whispers about ‘the sight’ and the person who has it. It makes sense that the house would want someone with the sight.”

“Why?”

“Hell, I dunno.”

Her face lit up. “Ohmigod, remember when you talked to that man who wasn’t there at the yogurt shop?”

“Yeah.”

“He wasn’t there! Maybe, he was a ghost.
Maybe
you just see ghosts.”

I wasn’t sure how that was possible, but it made sense. Anytime I’d focused on trying to see something, I could. And Meredith definitely hadn’t seen that man I was talking to. Even at the party, Ryder hadn’t seemed to know who I was talking about when I pointed out that partier.

Everything was starting to come together. For some reason, I had the sight, and I would have to be the one to bleed on the full moon. Could I reign in my emotions long enough to get the job done? I wasn’t sure, but there was only one way to find out.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“Spirits of the otherworld, lend me your hand.” Meredith tossed basil onto the circle she’d drawn on the floor with chalk, along with other random symbols she copied out of the book.

I stood in the middle of the circle chewing on my lip ring. The dull pain comforted me, but what I really wanted by my side was Cade. He hadn’t been around much, only showing up when Meredith had left to go pick up ingredients. He wasn’t too happy with her after she’d brought that book over.

“Do you feel anything?” Meredith asked.

I shook my head.

“I
said,
‘sprits of the otherworld, lend me your, um, hand, or, something.’” She fiddled with the necklace Cade gave me. I wanted her to be safe from the ghosts, and I’d shown her how to use it.

“You have to be confident.”

She lowered the book and cocked an eyebrow. “You the witch here?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, like you’ve cast that many spells.”

“Just shut up and let me concentrate.”

“Maybe if we sat down? Like they do in the movies?” I sat down and crossed my legs.

“Yeah, yeah let’s try that.” Plopping down on the floor outside the circle, she sat the book down on the floor in front of her. She picked up some more basil and held it over the edge of the circle. “Sprits of the otherworld, lend me your hand.”

As the basil hit the ground, the area around me warmed up. “Do you feel that?”

Meredith shook her head and opened her eyes. She reached beside her and pushed the knife toward me. “Alright, sight girl, your turn.”

My hands shook as I picked up the blade, finding it to be as warm as I felt. Sweat trickled down my forehead as I brought it to my arm. I’d cut myself before with a razor, why was it so scary to do it now? Sure the knife was bigger, but what we were doing was even bigger than that. The overwhelming sense of what we were doing hit me. Maybe it was a bad idea.

“Meredith…”

When she didn’t answer me, I looked up to see her staring at me with wide eyes. The green of her irises grew over the whites of her eyes, and her hair ruffled as if the wind had blown through the house.

“It’s working, Briar.” Her voice sounded off, a little lower pitched than it normally was. I could see her chest heaving up in down as her mouth fell open, hard breaths coming out of it.

“Are you okay?”

“We can’t stop now. It’s working. Remember why we’re doing this.”

I nodded in agreement and sliced the knife across my wrist. Pain radiated up my arm as the blood rushed forward, running down my skin and onto the basil below. The edges of the drawn circle turned blue and lit up the room.

“Otherworldly spirits, lend me your ear. We need your help to rid this house of its impurities.”

The slash on my arm began to close, and the blood slowed.
Damn ghostly perks.

“Again, Briar, and say it with me.”

With a grunt, I sliced the knife across my wrist again. “We need your help to rid this house of its impurities.”

Meredith froze, and her body went ridged. She continued with the spell, but none of the things she said were familiar. Her voice dropped to a whisper as she lowered her head and looked up at me under hooded eyes.

“What the hell are you doing?” Cade exclaimed and raced into the room. Without a thought, he ran straight toward me.

“Cade, stop! You can’t be here!”

“I can’t believe you let her talk you into this shit!” He threw himself toward me, but the area above the circle sizzled into blue and knocked him to the ground.

He couldn’t get to me.

My arm started to go numb, and I looked down to see the blood continuing to puddle around me. It wasn’t stopping, and it wasn’t healing. Something was wrong.

“Meredith!”

She ignored me and continued to mumble as the foundation began to shake. The house was angry. The blood swirled in a circle and then sunk into the floor, staining the wood a dark color.

“Briar!” Cade stood up and pounded on the hard air around me. “You have to stop the bleeding. Heal yourself!”

“I can’t!”

“Try harder!”

Terror crept up in my heart and worked its way throughout my body. I couldn’t stop it. My heart pounded against my chest as if it would rip out of it, and my thoughts started to race. I couldn’t control them. Flashes of losing my mother hit me. Flashes of the school shooting. Flashes of my suicide attempt. Each memory hit me like a train, until sitting up was a chore. I could feel the blood leaving my body and feeding the house. Whatever the spell was, it wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do.

“The darkness that’s been hidden away will awaken!” a ghosts said as she appeared across the room. “You’ve done exactly as the house wanted. It knew you couldn’t help yourself. You’ve played right into its hands.”

“No.” I shook my head. I couldn’t let it win.

I ripped cloth off my dress and pressed it against the wound to try to stop the bleeding. The world swirled around me, and the sounds dimmed to a thick, inaudible growl in the distance. I couldn’t die, but I wasn’t sure what would happen if the house got what it wanted.

The floor in front of me started to crack open, and I screamed. I forced myself backwards away from it, but the wood crumbled out from the small hole to create a bigger one.

“Break the circle, Briar!” Cade begged. “Please, we can stop it.”

I backed up until I ran into the visible force field around me. My hand went out to rub the chalk on the ground, which caused the air to become static and burst.

Cade rushed to my side and pulled me away from the hole. The crunching sound of the wood falling into the pit in front of me was something out of a nightmare, and the sound of the house falling apart followed it. Pieces of the ceiling fell to the ground as the house tore itself apart to get to me.

“Where does that go?” I cried and clung to him.

“I don’t even want to know.”

Meredith’s screams rang out, and I snapped my head up. Her eyes were back to normal; she looked at me in fear. “Holy moly, it worked! Well, I think. What’s wrong with the floor?”

“It hasn’t worked, dumbass!” Cade snarled.

He pulled me to my feet and walked us backwards. Meredith jumped up and ran for the door, while the ghost laughed at us.

“I told you that you would hurt her, Cade. You didn’t listen to me. The one who has a near death experience can gain the sight. She’s all we’ve waited for, and now we’ve got her.”

“No, you don’t.” He put his hands on my shoulders and made me look at him. “Whatever you do, my beautiful briar rose, never forget me.”

“What are you talking about?” I screamed and curled my fingers into his shirt.

He cupped my face in his and looked down at me like I was his entire world. “I wish that I could tell you everything would be okay. I wish that I could tell you that I’m going to stay right here beside you. But I have to save you.”

Before I could respond, he pressed his lips to mine and kissed me with every ounce of passion that he had inside him. His hands gripped my waist and pulled me to him, my own holding him even tighter because I was afraid of what he was going to do. The loud cracking of the wood and the sound of objects falling to the ground echoed in my ears, but only Cade’s warmth and love surrounded me.

“I love you,” he said and stepped back from me. With one last half smile, he threw himself into the pit.

The world slowed down as I watched him disappear into the darkness. His name flew from my mouth but sounded so far away. Tears filled my eyes as I ran forward to follow him. He couldn’t go without me. All of it was my fault. Maybe I could save him.

Just as I reached the edge, the wood groaned and closed up. I fell to the floor and hit the ground with my fist. I pounded on it with every bit of strength I had left as the house continued to crumble around me.

Small hands grabbed me by the shoulders; Meredith screamed over the chaos. “We have to go, Briar, don’t let him die in vain.”

The tears blurred my vision as I looked up at her. “He can’t die. He’s already dead.”

Her lips trembled as she looked back at me. “Honey, I don’t know, but we have to get out of here or
I’m
going to die.”

I let her pull me to my feet. We ran to the door and threw it open as we rushed out into the night. We didn’t stop until we hit the edge of the property. She let me go then, so I whirled around to look at the house and fell to my knees. Meredith dropped beside me and wrapped her arm around me. I cried harder than I ever had before. The tears streamed down my face; I couldn’t see very far in front of me. The world swirled around as I screamed for Cade again. I screamed until I couldn’t scream anymore.

Meredith pulled me to her as we watched the house tear itself apart, piece by piece, until there was nothing left.