Ghostwriting (24 page)

‘Because there was no wind felt when doors opened and closed, there can be no air element connected to the curse,' Chuck explained for Rhea's benefit.

‘Well, that makes perfect sense,' Rhea reasoned. ‘If Natalie drowned at sea, then the one element she would have been short on would have been air.'

‘And fire,' Chuck added.

Rhea nodded. ‘So does this information help us in our endeavour to be rid of this entity?'

Max thought hard about it and then cocked an eye at them. ‘I'd have to do some research,' he stated, obviously not wanting to commit to the quest in a hurry.

‘Would you?
Please
,' Rhea begged, using her large blue eyes to best advantage. ‘I'd be more than happy to pay you for your efforts.'

‘Of course.' Max relented and forced a smile. ‘But for the time being, I advise you to be nice to the entity if it makes its presence felt. Don't do anything to rile it.'

‘Oh, don't worry,' Rhea said, emphatically, ‘I won't.'

6. A Current Affair

When Rhea returned home, she was surprised to find the front door locked and that her key would
not unlock it.

‘Goddamn it!' she grumbled, giving the door a kick before she headed off around the house to the back door. ‘Why the hell is it locked anyway?' The workmen had all gone for the day, but Phillip's car was still in the carport. ‘Phillip!' she called as loud as she was able. ‘Phillip!' Rhea gave up, figuring he must be working on his construction.

On reaching the back door she was completely stunned to find that it would not open either. ‘This is ridiculous!' she decided. They never locked this door.

She resigned herself to walking across the hot, dusty distance between the house and the construction site to find Phillip and see if he could explain why he'd locked everything — perhaps he'd thought it best because he was not close at hand to keep an eye on the house. Surely he hasn't changed the locks?

‘That's a bit paranoid,' Rhea concluded. ‘Who the hell would be bothered travelling out here to commit a burglary?'

Phillip was not working on his solar project, nor was he in the huge shed. ‘Oh, damn.' She grabbed herself a drink of water, before traipsing back to the house. ‘He's got to be inside.'

She banged on the door, calling his name for several minutes, then, fed up with waiting, she went around peeking inside the windows to see if she
could locate him.

Rhea was about to give up when, through the bathroom window, she spied Phillip's feet; he was laid out on the laundry floor. ‘Phillip!' She banged on the window. When she could raise no response from him, her fear for his wellbeing urged her to grab the closest hunk of timber and smash the bathroom window. She quickly cleaned away the excess glass and managed to hoist herself inside, only sustaining a couple of minor cuts in the process.

‘Oh, Jesus,' she uttered upon finding he was unconscious. ‘Phillip?' She slapped him around the face a bit, whereupon he stirred.

‘What?' he grumbled, annoyed to wake up with a thumping headache. ‘What happened?' he asked, realising where he was.

‘I was just about to ask you the same question?' Rhea appealed. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Yeah, I think so.' He raised himself, with some help from Rhea, holding on to his aching head. But when Rhea touched the back of his neck he winced. ‘Ouch.'

‘You've got a bad bump back here.' Rhea took a look at the area that was giving him grief. ‘Did you knock your head on something?'

‘No …' He sounded uncertain about that and endeavoured to explain. ‘I was throwing my dirty clothes in the wash, when I thought I heard dripping water. I started looking about for a leak when I
thought …' He paused, smiled and shook his head.

‘You thought what?' Rhea encouraged him to voice his observation.

‘I thought I smelt sea water,' he shrugged, ‘and then my lights went out.'

Remembering that the priest had noted the same smell, Rhea's jaw dropped.

‘Is something the matter?' Phillip queried, noticing his wife's stunned expression.

Rhea was not given the chance to respond. Her eyes had drifted back to the glass debris on the bathroom floor which had begun to vibrate on the tiles. ‘Watch out!' She grabbed Phillip's hand and made a break for the door. Splinters of glass shot forth and shattered against the laundry appliances, barely missing Phillip as he was dragged out the door, which Rhea slammed closed behind them.

The couple leant against the door, catching their breath after the close call, then Phillip turned to Rhea to inquire, ‘You saw the priest today?'

Rhea only nodded, her expression grave.

‘We're haunted?' He would have felt silly suggesting this, had he not been knocked unconscious by some unknown force and had he not seen glass take flight of its own accord.

‘No,' she stated, cringing. ‘What we've got is much, much worse.'

 

No longer feeling comfortable in the house, Rhea led Phillip back out to his shed to convey what she had learnt — needless to say, Phillip was infuriated by the news.

‘Those fucking bastards!' He looked around at his yet-to-be-realised project and kicked one of the huge tyres on the semi-trailer. ‘No wonder they were prepared to sell this place so cheap! What the hell are we going to do now?'

‘I don't know,' Rhea kept a civil tone, ‘but hopefully the Father's friend, Max, will come up with a solution.'

‘And what if he doesn't?' Phillip shot back at her, realising his anger was misdirected, but unable to help himself. He was furious!

‘Hon —' Rhea was about to try and reason with him, when the sound of a car arriving drew their attention. They headed outside to see the car screech to a halt, and the priest and Max climb out of the vehicle.

Rhea ran to greet them. ‘Am I ever glad to see you guys. Please tell me you have a solution.'

‘We may well do.' Max smiled reassuringly. ‘But we'll have a bit of a hunt ahead of us first.'

‘A hunt?' Rhea frowned.

‘We need to brainstorm,' Max advised. ‘Any chance of a cuppa?'

‘Sure,' Rhea directed them toward the shed. ‘The
house is a little angry this evening.' She explained her choice of venue.

‘I thought you said you wouldn't do anything to upset the entity,' Chuck teased.

‘My husband beat me to it.' Rhea motioned to Phillip and introduced the men on the way to the shed.

 

When Max heard about the latest occurrence, he was very pleased. ‘Well, perhaps our search won't be as difficult as expected.'

‘How do you mean?' Rhea sipped on her coffee, struggling to keep a steady hand. Just speaking about this afternoon's misadventure had her nerves on edge.

‘Well, I discovered that this thought form could not have attached its “self” to this house, unless there was something left here by the instigator to draw it hither.'

‘The original curse,' Rhea guessed.

‘Exactly,' Max confirmed. ‘Even though the curse did not take effect when it was cast, the thought form arose during Natalie's tragic death experience and it was drawn here by whatever voodoo charm had been first used to hex the house. All we have to do is discover this charm and remove it.'

‘And, as this entity draws its energy from a water and earth based source, Natalie must have left something pertaining to these elements inside the house somewhere.'

‘Could that have had something to do with the dripping I heard?' Phillip wondered.

‘Well, the entity sure didn't like you snooping around in the laundry this afternoon,' Max confirmed Phillip's suspicion, ‘so I'd say that's a damn fine place to start looking.'

‘We might want to clear up the shattered glass,' Rhea suggested, trying to make light of the horror.

‘If it means we get to keep the property, our lives and our sanity,' Phillip reasoned, ‘it will be well worth a few scratches.'

‘I suggest we wait until morning before starting our search,' said Max, ‘as the light will be better.'

‘Well,' Rhea sighed in relief, not too keen on sleeping in the house anyway, ‘it's a good thing I've got new blankets in the back of my car.'

 

In the first daylight hours they headed back to the house, their backs sore from the odd sleeping arrangements. The front door opened with ease and the three men headed straight for the laundry, whilst Rhea made coffee and laid out some food.

Phillip quickly cleaned up the splintered glass so that it could cause no more grief and as he swept the last of it away, he noted the dripping sound once more. ‘Hear that?'

Max frowned as he listened hard and then nodded.

‘Where's it coming from?' Phillip passed his
dustpan full of glass splinters to Chuck who took them to the kitchen for disposal. Phillip checked the taps and connectors in the laundry and bathroom, but none were leaking. He turned to find Max down on all fours, with his ear to the timber floor in the laundry.

‘Listen here.' He urged Phillip down. ‘Your ears are younger than mine.'

Phillip got down on his haunches, then hesitated. ‘Watch my back, will you?' Max winked to indicate that he would, and Phillip placed his ear to the floor. ‘You're right.' He was excited by the fact and immediately headed outside to grab some tools.

Rhea was curious about all the noise and as she entered the laundry, bearing cups of coffee in hand, she nearly freaked out — her husband and Max were attempting to rip one of floorboards from the floor. ‘What are you doing?'

The floorboard gave way and cracked in half, whereupon the strong scent of sea water filled the room, the smell of which made everyone back away.

The smell swept past Rhea and into the house, and then all the doors slammed closed.

Everyone stood breathless a moment, waiting to see if the entity intended to retaliate further, but when all remained still and quiet, Max dared to speak.

‘I think we found its haunt.'

Once most of the floorboards had been ripped away, an old well was exposed.

‘Now what?' Phillip stared down into the dark recess. ‘How are we going to dredge that? God knows how deep it goes and if Natalie threw some sort of voodoo hex down there it has probably disintegrated anyway.'

‘A bottle of water and some dirt might have done the trick if the right words were invoked,' Max told them, remaining calm as he thought about the next step. ‘Do you have a water pump?'

Phillip smiled at the simplicity of what the old bloke was suggesting. ‘Will that work?'

Max shrugged. ‘We won't know unless we give it a go.'

‘It's got to be worth a try,' Rhea seconded. She hated to think they'd destroyed the floor to no end.

‘I'll rig it up.' Phillip went to fetch the water pump.

‘I'll give you hand.' Chuck followed him outside.

‘So what shall we do with the water?' Rhea quizzed Max. ‘If we let it flow on to the property won't that release the entity into the great outdoors?'

Max shrugged. ‘I would tend to think that exposing the curse to the two elements it doesn't have, air and fire,' he motioned to the sun, ‘shall render it null and void.'

‘And if it doesn't?' Rhea ventured.

‘The way I see it … what have you got to lose?' Max queried and Rhea saw his point.

 

Phillip dropped a hose into the well and ran another outside where the water could flow into the sun-parched earth. ‘Okay …' He looked to everyone present as if asking if they were ready; secretly they were all worried that the entity would not take kindly to having its home disturbed. Nevertheless everyone gave Phillip the nod, and he flipped the switch on. The pump powered up and began sucking water out through the hose into the sunshine.

After a few moments when all seemed to be going swimmingly, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

‘You really think this is going to work?' Phillip uttered aside to Max who raised both brows.

‘I —' he began but noticed that the door to the laundry had crept open and the casing of the pump had started to spark. ‘I think something is amiss.'

Suddenly the pump blew a pressure valve, and when water started flowing into the casing of the pump, Phillip knew they were in trouble. ‘Move it!' He grabbed Rhea and wrenched her out the back door. Max and Chuck exited quickly behind them as the pump exploded in a shower of sparks.

‘Shit!' Phillip growled as the sparks and smoke subsided and the pump died a sad death. ‘So much for that idea.'

‘Um …' Chuck was staring at the electrical cord
that plugged the pump into the wall. ‘What is that?' He pointed to a visible electrical charge that was moving slowly down the power cord and toward the electrical socket on the wall.

Phillip moved closer, having never seen anything like it in all his time as an electro-mechanical design engineer. ‘I have no idea.' His first impulse was to rip the power cable out of the socket, or at least switch off the power point, but Rhea held him back.

‘Don't touch it,' she demanded, as it was obviously live and faulty.

In that moment of hesitation the strange electrical phenomenon disappeared into the wall.

‘Oh dear,' mumbled Max, not wanting to alarm anyone with the thought he was having.

‘Oh dear, what?' Phillip urged him to voice his woes.

‘I'm not entirely sure, but what if our watery entity has been empowered by the electrical charge and is now using the electrical system to transport itself to a safer abode elsewhere?' Max suggested meekly.

‘But surely the surge guard will shut down the power once the charge reaches the meter box,' Chuck posited, ‘and trap the entity in the electrical wiring of the house.'

‘Double shit!' Phillip ran around to the side of the house to view the old meter box. ‘The electrician has yet to fit an earth leakage breaker,' he explained his distress to the others as he ran. ‘There's nothing
to stop it from accessing the mains power, the local power plant, the rest of the town and beyond!'