The Crimson Key (7 page)

“So this person he works for
, who is she?” I queried, still not sure what else to ask.

“I don’t know who she is. All he told me was she is a woman who is going to bring the sisters back to their home. That she would breathe life into the lungs of the Barclay power once more. It’s like a cult following. He freaked me out
, he wasn’t lying.” Her serious face made me believe her and John’s story. If I could see ghosts, he could be part of some satanic cult. I wasn’t sure what that was, but these sisters didn’t exactly deal with happy witch spells to make your hair grow. They dealt with evil, dark magic and if John Mayhew and his family were helping preserve their home, I could only imagine what else he knew about them. I had to talk to him. But the only question was how?

“The whole freaky part to me was how he touched everything in adoration of them. He has a key for God’s sake. I bolted from the house that night and wouldn’t talk to him or his cousins again.”

“Ephraim, too?” I asked. I hadn’t thought about him until now. Kayla once told me to stay away from the Mayhews and I worried that he was into this cult thing, too.

“No. Not him or Lynley. The other losers
, though. He made me swear to keep their secrets or they would … they would hurt me.” I couldn’t believe that this was true. John Mayhew was a part of this Barclay revival cult. I didn’t know what to call it really. I didn’t agree with it but I did need the sisters.

“It’s hard to believe
,” I admitted.

“Why do you think the house was so preserved?” she asked. I shrugged. It
was
amazing.

“Because they keep it that way. To us normals it looks like a wreck
, but once you’re inside its impeccable because they honor the Barclay sisters. It’s like they do it in their memory.” I wasn’t completely convinced of this. I have met a lot of the Mayhew family, and while they were all egotistical weirdos, I didn’t see them doing that. On the other hand, Kayla wouldn’t make this up. She might have very well been threatened by them. 

“So you’re telling me this so that I stay away from John?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes and no. I want you to keep your guard up around him, but I heard your fight with Little Miss Anorexic next door and I think it could help get her help.”

“Don’t call Lynley anorexic!” I warned.

“She is looking awfully terrible lately, she could use a good meal,” she chided.

“She’s sick! And what are you doing floating around and spying on people?” I asked.

“I don’t float, I roam. Sometimes I hear good information. Like for instance your boyfriend talking to ghosts.” I froze at her words as a lump formed in my throat. He told me they didn’t talk to him as much anymore, but if Kayla heard him talking to someone then that meant he lied. I didn’t want to admit that he was worse than he was acting. Only because I didn’t want to see the day come when he was too far gone for me to save.

“Do you want my opinion on the whole Lynley thing?” she asked as she twirled her blue hair.

“Yeah, of course I do!”

“She is either taking on the full curse or she is mixed up with John. As for lover boy
, he only talks to this spirit once in a while.”

“I hope so. Thanks for telling me this
, Kayla.”

“If you need my help with anything just holler.”

I nodded and she disappeared. I hated when she did that. It was hard to have a friend for one minute and then she was gone the next. I knew at that moment what I had to do. I needed to go to the lake and read my book without ghost intrusion.

I met my mom downstairs at the kitchen table. She had taken up crocheting and was busy making blankets for the house because in the winter it could be pretty drafty. I guess she didn’t want us to freeze to death in here
, so I would take the blankets. I also loved that she made it from her own hands.

Smiling when she saw me
, she patted the chair next to her. I sat down and started fiddling with the yarn on the table. She pointed to the book resting on my knees. “Homework?” I nodded. It wasn’t homework for school. Certainly not.

“I’m not sick
, Mom,” I admitted to her. She smiled; she knew I wasn’t sick but she let me stay home anyway. “Lynley and I had a pretty bad fight.” I noticed my voice quivering. I hadn’t really spoken to anyone about our argument, so I was surprised at my reaction to it now. Suddenly I was crying, so she set down her yarn and hook. Pulling me in to her arms, she cradled me like she did when I was a kid and would come home from having a bad day at school.

“I don’t need to know any details
, but I can say that no matter what they are, you both will make up.” She was trying to help, but I wasn’t so sure our fight was fixable. Mom didn’t know what the truth of it was. It would be so easy to tell her my story right now, to spill the beans on everything and bring it out into the open. I couldn’t do it. I would risk everything telling her. She would freak out and we would be on the next plane to Cali in no time. I nodded to appease her, and she let me go as I took a heavy breath. She got me a glass of water and set it down on the table. I drank until I felt better and the tears stopped. I needed to get out to the lake.

“Mom
, can I go to the lake and read?”

“Of course
, just don’t stay out too late. You have school tomorrow, you know?” I nodded and got up from the table.

“Brylee
, can I ask you something?” she asked, catching me before I left.

“Sure.”

“Remember when the chairs moved away from the table that one night?” Oh boy did I ever. We had been having dinner with Lynley and Ephraim that night. The chairs moved on their own. It freaked my mom out to the point that she needed to start taking her anti-anxiety pills again.

“Yeah
, I do.” I stared at the ground, avoiding all eye contact.

“Do you ever notice anything else? The reason I ask is because I notice stuff all the time
, and your father just says I am being silly.” Desperation flooded her voice. She needed me to tell her that she wasn’t crazy. I knew that feeling all too well. When I first saw the Browns I felt the same.

“Yeah
, from time to time I notice stuff,” I started. “But, Mom, it’s an old house, ya know?”

“I know
, it’s just that I hear things around town.” We had talked about this once and my answer hadn’t been very forthcoming.

“Mom
, I hear the same things. So what if they are true, I mean who cares? If the house is haunted they aren’t bad, right?” I prayed that she didn’t have any of the same contact that I did. I hoped the pale-haired ghost didn’t try to brush my mom’s hair.

“No
, they seem harmless. It is little things, like hearing footsteps at night.” She paused briefly. “But the one thing that kind of freaked me out a little was yesterday.”

“What happened?” I asked, my apprehension growing.

“Well, I was getting out of the shower and I came into the bedroom, I saw an imprint of a body lying in our bed. Brylee, when I screamed the imprint got up; I saw the bed slowly go back to normal as they left.” She was pale-white now, like she was remembering the incident first hand.

“Wow
,” I said. “Well they say that we are the visitors in a house that is haunted. They are just trying to live here too.” I had to do whatever it was to keep us here. Now that my parents had bought the house and it was theirs it would be harder for us to move out. I didn’t want her to feel afraid of them. On the other hand I wanted her to keep telling me if she continued to have experiences.

“I suppose. Thanks Brylee you made me feel a lot better
,” she said as she kissed my cheek.

“Sure thing
, Mom.” I gripped the book and left the house.

The lake would have been busy if everyone was out of school. I got several texts from Ephraim asking where I was and why I ditched. My only answer was for him to ask his sister. I needed to be alone so I could read this book and hone in on my so-called gift. If I was special and could see these spirits it was about time to focus my energy on helping all of them. I sat on the grass with the book in hand. The sun felt great on my skin. I needed the peace and quiet to focus.

I flipped open the first page and right away found some pretty interesting information. The writer had the same ‘gift’ as me; he could commune with the dead. He went on to explain in very intricate detail his experiences. He didn’t have dates or years when it had happened; the book didn’t even have a publication date. Which led me to wonder how this book ended up in the library.

I read on, finding his stories to be somewhat similar to mine. He lived in a house that was haunted as well. The child living in the house prior to him had died from a fracture to his skull, beaten to death by his own mother after the father left them. She went crazy after and took her own life, but not inside the house. The child, Andre, visited the author—whose name I had yet to discover—on a regular basis. They became friends of some sort. The man decided that he would help Andre somehow. So he did his research. He started taking classes at the local college on Paranormal Studies. He found them to be somewhat blurred, explaining that they tried to disprove the theory of hauntings more so than give facts on it. He quit the class and began visiting homes nearby, asking if they too had the same issues. Many slammed the door in his face, while others were very open and honest, telling him their similar stories. One woman who only lived four doors down had a spirit that liked to keep the doors open, and once threw all her glasses on the ground one after the other. The author knew this was a problem for her. Her ghost was angry.

He finally decided to see a spiritual advisor or a psychic reader to help direct him in the right path. I ended the book there. I had read enough information for the day to know which step I needed to take. I needed to visit Hala again.

When Ephraim got home from school I was waiting for him on his porch. Thankfully, Mrs. Mayhew wasn’t home. He got out of the truck and Lynley followed slowly behind; her head down and her face hidden by her tangled hair. She looked awful. She was rail-thin like Kayla had told me.

“Lyn
, oh my God, you look terrible,” I said quietly. She shot me a glance that looked like she could strangle me for even speaking to her. Pushing past me, she went into the house. “Ephraim I … I didn’t mean to offend her she just looks …” He put a hand up to shush me and pulled me out to the backyard. We walked to our spot in the woods, where we would often sit and talk.

He sat down on the soft grass and pulled me into his lap. As he ran his fingers through my hair
, I began to relax.

“She is really sick
, Brylee, and I am so scared for her,” he admitted as he continued to play with my hair. “She won’t even talk to me. When she does, it is mostly ramblings of things I don’t understand.”

“Like what?” I dared to ask. Did I want to know how bad she was?

“It’s more like a ‘she’ instead of a what. Then again, I am not sure this girl is even living,” he rambled. “She says her name is Evangeline and she is here to help her and me. I told Lynley that I don’t want anything to do with her.” He took a deep breath and let go of my hair. When he leaned back onto his hands I sat up.

“Look at me
,” I said, pulling his face to mine. “You know that something is going on with her, right? She is having the symptoms before you, and much sooner than we anticipated.” He nodded as his eyes started tearing up. It broke me in half to see him like this. He was hurting for her and I couldn’t help her yet.

“I have this idea … well
, it’s more like a solid plan,” I started. “I went to the library and sort of met a new ghost who gave me this book.” I put the book on his lap and he looked down at it but didn’t open it. “So far it’s basically the writer’s account on how he helped ghosts. He was like me, a medium, but he didn’t go to school to better his talent. He went to a spiritual advisor. And that’s what I am going to do, if you’ll drive me.” Ephraim looked at me like I was crazy. Smiling, I nudged him. “I met this lady before on the boardwalk. She grabbed me and knew what I was.”

“How did she know?”

“She saw it in my aura,” I said as I waved my hand around my head. I had him laughing now. His tears were dry and his smile was back. “She calls me a dead talker. She is sorta funny, but I need to talk to her about this lady Evangeline. I don’t think she is good news, Ephraim.”

“I don’t think so either.” We got up and were walking toward his truck when he grabbed me and held me in his arms for a few seconds. “I am sorry that she said what she did to you.”

I needed to hear someone say that, but I needed it to be Lynley not Ephraim. “I am so afraid it will be you next,” I choked out. It was the truth of the situation really. He held me tighter and I wished in that moment that he would not let go of me. I wanted to stay like this forever and let time move around us. When he let me go my skin grew instantly cold. He noticed and pulled off his hoodie, putting it over my head. The weather was chilly today and I had dressed for summer.