Little Red Gem (28 page)

Anne squeezed her eyes
shut. “Father passed away during that winter. I could not have
gotten through that terrible time if it were not for
William.”

I didn’t want to be sad,
but I was swept up in the fairy tale saga of a girl who forced to
marry someone she didn’t love. “That must have been awful. Marry
someone you don’t love but it brings peace. Marry someone you do
love and live a life of poverty. What did you do?” Anne burst out
laughing. I shook my head and groaned. “Okay, dumb question. Forget
I asked it. Of course you didn’t marry the loser. You chose
William.”

“
We decided to run away,
get married, and live happily ever after.”

A head appeared in the
window. “And that is where this story goes south,” William said. “I
had no money for a ring. Anne said she didn’t need a ring to seal
our love but I was determined she have one anyway. So, on the night
of our elopement I stole a wristwatch from a drunkard at the
tavern. I fled into the darkness and thought I had gotten away with
the theft, when out of the darkness came this…this shadow. When
moonlight struck, the shadow transformed into a man. Standing
before me was the drunkard whose watch I had stolen. He was angry
at the theft and when I told him I had taken it to sell so I could
buy my betrothed a wedding ring, he grew even angrier and said that
love was for fools. Then he laughed and said he was a witch and my
punishment for stealing his pocket watch was that I was to be
cursed. I was to be trapped in time with my beloved, but we would
never be together. Like two sides of the same coin.”

“
Oh.” I didn’t know what
else to say, yet I felt like I should have said something positive.
“So that’s why you cling to the watch.” After a pause, I added,
“But if magic bound you, then magic should be able to un-bind
you.”

Anne returned to the couch
and sat down heavily. “It was a lovely gesture when you brought
that witch here. For a moment I thought she might be able to help
us. In a way I suppose I am glad that she refused. Magic only leads
to trouble.”

“
I can believe that,” I
said, remembering how the guilt over messing people’s lives up had
eaten at me so much that I’d dragged Teri up to Caper’s Cabin in
the hope she could lift Anne and William’s curse. Teri had refused
to help, saying curses were dark magic and she wouldn’t get
involved with dark magic. Would she attempt it for me, I
wondered?

Somewhere midway through
their story, the day had fully woken. Now, sun streamed through
every window and crack in the cabin, bringing with it a gush of
renewed vigor over how I could once again attempt to help Anne and
William.

If only I could have spent
this much effort on learning how to
stop
interfering.

“
I’ll be back in a little
while,” I told them.

I vanished and
materialized in front of Teri’s store. It was Monday, so Audrey
would be in school in her physical form and not wandering the plane
where she could see me. But Teri could, so I was careful when I
slipped into her store and into the small back room where I
remembered she’d stored the magic books she’d used to create the
love spell. The other spirit-detecting radar, Oleander, was
thankfully busy cleaning his nether regions.

As I touched the spell
book, the memory of my first visit to Teri’s shop rushed me.
Showing up to have my fortune read…it was like that day had
happened so long ago and to someone else. The memory of my second
visit to Teri’s shop came next to mind. As well as explaining the
process of trading places with Audrey and binding her to the
afterlife, William had also said that ghosts made great thieves
because whatever they hid inside their clothing became as invisible
as them. I’d walked out of Teri’s store with a tiny antique mirror
to test his claim.

I grabbed the biggest of
the spell books, closed my eyes, and wished myself back to the
cabin. At least my teleportation skills had improved.

“
Got it,” I sang out,
waving the book in the air.

William’s face appeared in
the window. “Got what, my dear?”

“
Teri’s spell book. I’ll
bet there’s something in here that can help you.”

“
No. I forbid it.” Anne
said.

Slamming the book onto the
dining table, I opened it to the first page. “It’s the only way.
And William made a point before when he said magic works if you
want it to. Trust me, Anne. This will work. You’ve got to believe
in it.”

“
What if the spell
backfires?”

“
Relax. You can’t be
any
more
cursed,
can you? Now, let me see…alters, astral projection, changelings,
charms, cleansing spells, divination, dreams, love spells, psychic
protection, tarot, visions, upperworld, underworld. There has to be
something in here about undoing a witch’s curse.”

I spent the rest of that
day repeating chants and casting spells and pretty much impressing
the heck out of myself with how easily I could read an ancient
language, but my language skills weren’t enough to get any of the
spells to work. It was as if I didn’t possess any magical genes and
the spell book knew this. Still, because ghosts didn’t sleep I
worked into the night, conjuring and chanting and pointing – there
was way too much pointing for my liking – and even after every
attempt at William entering the cabin failed, I continued. On the
brink of the second afternoon, Anne begged me to stop.

“
We have all the time in
the world,” I explained. “I’m sure I felt something that last
spell.”

I hadn’t, but Ruby Parker
wasn’t a quitter.

I jumped when someone
behind us cleared their throat.

Audrey stood a few feet
inside the front door of the cabin. The slight opaqueness to her
body indicated she was visiting us in her apparition state, which
explained why we hadn’t heard her unlock the door. The last time
I’d seen Audrey, it had not ended well. She’d slapped me and cursed
me to hell.

“
Hi,” I said
tentatively.

Audrey nodded curtly in my
direction and took a few steps into the room. Her eyes traveled all
over the room until they landed on the dining table.

“
Mom went to use her spell
book and found it missing,” she said. “She thinks I’ve taken it so
I can make another love potion. I said ‘another’ and she said ‘you
must be under a lot of stress at school because you’re acting weird
again’. I said ‘again?’ and she said ‘maybe it is a good idea if
you go to Texas with your father for a break’. As you can imagine,
I’m confused.”

I moved to step closer but
stopped when I saw the tight set of her jaw. “I’m so sorry, Audrey.
I didn’t mean to mess things up for you.

“
I warned you about the
astral plane. You can only observe, otherwise bad stuff
happens.”

I bit my lip but it
quivered and trembled nonetheless. “You don’t wanna know how
bad.”

“
Oh, I have an idea.
Natalie and Shanessa want me to join their band. They say we may be
going to Los Angeles for Reach For The Stars finals, though I
didn’t realize I knew how to sing. My best friend has kindly
informed me that Leo Culver and I are an item, though I don’t see
how that’s possible when Leo glares at me like I’ve killed his dog.
And, not only does Dad
not
want me to hang around with Leo Culver, he wants
me to move to Texas with him. Permanently. I have to wonder how my
life could get so completely turned upside down in such a short
time. Most of your meddling is confusing, but not catastrophic.”
She paused dramatically. “
Most
of the things. The one thing that is catastrophic
is Dad wanting to take me to Texas with him. Care to explain that
to me?”

I realized I might not
have a bottom lip by the time I finished confessing everything to
Audrey. “He’s worried Leo is going to seduce you and get you
pregnant.”

Audrey gasped, and a
little piece of me hardened in defensiveness. This simple gesture
drove a knife into my steely resolve. It was as if that one gasp
had acted as judge and jury and I’d been found guilty of a serious
crime. So what? I’d made a mistake. I didn’t deserve to be cursed
for eternity. I didn’t deserve a lot of things.

“
Wait,” Audrey said. “Did
Leo get
you
pregnant or
you as me
pregnant?”

“
I was pregnant when I
died—”

She interrupted me with
her dagger stare. “I suppose you think congratulations are in
order.”

“
No.”

“
Good. Though it is kinda
cool how I might have been an aunty.”

Her shoulders slumped.
“You want to know what hurts the most. That you hate me so much
you’d trick me. I loved having you for a sister, even after our dad
and my mom broke up I wished you and I could keep on being sisters.
But you wanted nothing to do with me.”

I had no energy left to
deny it, but I owed her an explanation. “I thought dad loved you
more. He was always buying you gifts and I got nothing.”

She shot me an incredulous
look. “He loved us equally.”

“
I know that. Now. But you
gotta understand, I was a kid myself. It was easier to hate you
than to hate dad.”

She nodded. “I know what
you mean. Still, I would have gladly traded places with you if
you’d asked. I would have let you say goodbye to Leo. I’m a girl,
aren’t I? I know about love.”

An uncomfortable silence
hung around us and was only interrupted when Anne politely coughed
and said, “You came for the spell book.”

I went over and picked it
up. It was a powerful book, yet useless in the wrong hands. “You
might as well take it back. We can’t get it to work.”

“
I can’t carry stuff
around me like ghosts can,” Audrey said. “You’ll have to bring it
back.”

“
Fine. Might as well do it
now.”

Audrey’s apparition could
travel fast, but not as fast as me. Besides, it was as if we both
felt that walking into town might make up for lost
years.

When we reached the edge
of the dirt track, Audrey asked, “What did you want the book for
anyway?”

I told her about Anne and
William’s curse. Then I told her about everything that had
transpired while I’d been in possession of her body. When I
finished, we were standing out the front of Mysteries.

Audrey shook her head and
chuckled. “I can’t believe you thought you could undo a curse. No
offense, but although the dead often feature in magic, they can’t
weave it. There has to be
some
laws.” She paused with her hand pressed against
the solid wall. “It’s a sweet gesture though. Tell you what, I’ll
come to the cabin tomorrow and undo their curse.”

“
You can do magic?” I
asked. “I got the impression from your mom that you weren’t into
this stuff.”

Audrey stepped through the
solid wall of the shop and I followed.

“
I am into magic,” she
said. “I just don’t let her know.”

“
Why not? Your mom’s
pretty cool. I’m sure she’d be pleased to know you share an
interest.”

“
Look at this way. If you
expressed an interest to work at the tourism office, don’t you
think your mom would be so over the moon she’d want to spend every
freaking minute of the day with you?”

Her wisdom was flawless.
“You’re right. I’d never get any privacy.”

“
I can do magic beyond my
mother’s wildest dreams.”

The wicked expression on
her face should have conveyed confidence in her ability. Instead it
gave me goose bumps.

***

True to her word, Audrey
returned the following afternoon, armed with a boxful of stuff. She
did not come alone, though. Shanessa and Natalie burst into the
cabin with her, wide eyed with curiosity.

“
I had to bring them with
me,” Audrey said as soon as she set foot inside the cabin. “I can’t
drive and four miles and back is just too far to walk.”

Shanessa surveyed the room
with a crinkled nose. “I still can’t believe ghosts have been
watching us all this time.”

Natalie ran to the wall
and flicked a light switch up and down a few times. “Great. No
power.”

“
That’s what these are
for,” Audrey said, placing the cardboard box on the dining table.
From within she removed a handful of candles plus the spell book.
She handed the candles to Natalie and told her to light
them.

Natalie rolled her eyes.
“I meant no power to watch TV. What am I supposed to do while you
talk to the dead.”

“
We’re here for moral
support,” Shanessa said opening the curtains to allow the waning
afternoon light to filter into the cabin.

“
I wanna see if we made
the promo for Reach For The Stars.” Natalie stopped lighting the
candles and she wrapped her arms around her body. “No offense, but
this cabin gives me the creeps.”

“
Hopefully I’m about to
change that,” Audrey said.