The Reckoning (6 page)

M
ARGARET LED US INTO
the cemetery. There were some mourners under a temporary canopy, huddled around a casket. We steered clear of them.

The only graveyard I’d ever been in was the one where my mom was buried. Dad and I went every year on her birthday.

This one was bigger, with new graves at the front, where the mourners were. Margaret led us to the back, which had the old graves. It was empty there—the dead having been dead so long there was no one left to visit them.

As cemeteries went, I supposed it was nice, with lots of trees and benches. Take away the headstones and it would make a decent park, especially with the sun warming up the cold April morning. I tried to focus on the sun and the scenery, not on what lay under my feet.

Margaret stopped at one of the more recent graves in the
old area. It was of a woman who’d died in 1959 at the age of sixty-three. Margaret said that was ideal—someone who hadn’t died so long ago that she’d be spooked by our modern clothes, but long enough ago that she wouldn’t have a lot of loved ones left and want messages passed on.

She told us to kneel like we were the family of this woman—Edith—come to pay our respects. Most necromancers avoided daytime summoning, but Margaret thought that was silly. Coming at night only called more attention to yourself. In the daytime, if you brought a friend—a supernatural of course—it was easy, because you could kneel at a grave and talk and no one would look twice.

“Or you could use a cell phone,” Tori said.

“That’s hardly respectful in a cemetery,” said Margaret with a sniff.

Tori shrugged. “I guess. But she
could
. And she should probably have a cell anyway, for when a ghost tries talking to her in public.”

Margaret rolled her eyes. I thought it was a good idea and appreciated it.

It would be great to think Tori was starting to like me, but, as she said, she’d realized how alone she was. Everyone needs an ally and I was the only choice.

I sighed. I’d never realized how good I’d had it, back in my normal life, where if a popular girl talked to me, the worst thing that could happen was she was planning to mock my stutter to get a laugh from the popular guys.

Margaret opened her briefcase and took out baggies of herbs, a piece of chalk, matches, and a little saucer. Ritual material to help necromancers summon, she explained. Tori suppressed a snort, as if to say I didn’t need that. I said nothing.

“Should I remove this?” I asked, pulling my pendant from under my shirt.

Margaret blinked. “Where did you get that?”

“My mother, when I was little. I was seeing ghosts, and she told me this would keep them away. So it’s for real?”

“Real, yes—real superstitious nonsense. I haven’t seen one since I was about your age. Necromancers don’t use them anymore, but they were once quite the hot fashion item for our kind. It’s supposed to reduce a necromancer’s glow.”

“Glow?” Tori said.

“That’s what ghosts see that marks us as necromancers, right?” I said.

Margaret nodded.

“And if this necklace makes it dim,” I said, “then the necromancer won’t attract ghosts.”

“Well, then Margaret’s right,” Tori said. “It’s definitely not working. But that’s not the same one you were wearing at Lyle House. That was red and on a chain.”

“It
was
red.” I fingered the blue stone. “The chain broke. But if it is real, then changing color could mean it lost its power.”

Margaret stared at the pendant. “It changed color?”

I nodded. “Does that mean something?”

“They say—” She shook it off. “Superstitious nonsense. Our world is full of it, I’m afraid. Now let’s get started. The first thing I need you to do, Chloe, is read the woman’s name, and keep that in your mind. Then, aloud, you’ll repeat what we call an entreaty. Say the spirit’s name and respectfully ask her to speak to you. Try that.”

“Edith Parsons, I’d like to speak to you please.”

“That’s it. Next we light the…”

As Margaret explained, a plump woman in a blue dress appeared behind the gravestone, her wrinkled face frowning as her bright blue eyes peered around. When those eyes swung my way, the frown vanished in a wide smile.

“Hello,” I said.

Margaret’s gaze followed mine and she jumped.

Tori snickered. “Guess Chloe doesn’t need that stuff after all.”

Margaret greeted the woman, who glanced her way, but her gaze—and smile—swung back to me.

“Aren’t you a sweet little thing,” she said. “How old are you, doll?”

“Fifteen.”

“And you can see ghosts. I can tell by the glow. I’ve never met one of you, but I’ve heard the others tell of such things. They call you a…” She struggled for the word.

“Necromancer,” I said.

Her face screwed up, like she’d bit a lemon. “In my day,
they called people who talked to ghosts spiritualists or mediums. Much nicer words, don’t you think?”

I agreed.

She looked from me to Margaret and laughed. “All these years of not believing folks when they talked about you people, and here I meet two in one day.”

She reached out and tapped the air around me, my glow, I guess.

“So pretty,” she murmured. “It draws the eye…Yours is so bright, dear. Much brighter than hers. I suppose that’s because you’re younger.”

I’d heard that the stronger the glow, the stronger the necromancer, and it must be true, because Margaret’s lips tightened.

“C-can I try something?” I asked.

“Of course, doll. No need to be shy. This is a special day for me.” She lowered her voice. “It can get a bit dull on the other side. This will be a lovely story to tell my friends.”

“I’m going to take off my necklace, and I’d like to know if it changes my glow.”

“Good idea,” Tori murmured.

Margaret harrumphed, like it was a waste of time, but didn’t stop me. I lifted the ribbon over my head and handed it to Tori.

The old woman gasped. “Oh my.”

I turned to see her staring, eyes like saucers. Then there was a shimmer to my left…and one to my right.

Margaret let out an oath. She lunged over, snatching the necklace from Tori and pressing it into my hand. The air continued to shimmer, shapes taking form as I yanked the necklace back on.

Edith vanished and in her place appeared a young woman in a pioneer outfit. She knelt in front of me, sobbing.

“Oh, praise God. Praise
God
. I have been waiting so long. Please, help me, child. I need—”

A young man in a ripped and filthy denim jacket grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her back. “Listen, kid, I’ve been stuck here since—”

A heavyset man gave the young guy a shove, sending him flying. “Have some respect for your elders, punk.”

“Thanks.” I looked past him to the pioneer woman, cringing and sobbing. “How can I—?”

“I was talking about
me
,” the man said. “I was here first.”

“No, you weren’t. I’ll get to you.” I tried leaning around the man.

“You want me to take a number? Fine.” He grabbed the pioneer woman and threw her. She disappeared. “Whoops. Guess she left. My turn.”

I leaped to my feet. “Don’t you—”

“Don’t I what?” He lunged forward. His face went purple, swelling to twice its size, eyes bugging out, black tongue lolling. I reeled back. The guy in the dirty jacket jumped behind me. I spun out of his way.

“Sorry, kid.” He smiled, showing rows of rotting teeth. “Didn’t mean to spook you. Spook you. Get it?” He laughed. I backed away, but he closed the gap between us. “Got a problem you can help with, kid. See, I’m stuck here in limbo, on account of a few things I didn’t do. Bum rap, you know? So I’m trapped here, and I need you to do something for me.”

“And me!” a voice behind me shouted.

“And me!”

“Me!”

“Me!”

I turned slowly and found myself surrounded by ghosts of all ages, at least a dozen of them, pressing closer; eyes wild; hands reaching for me; voices rising, shouting, demanding, snarling. The heavyset guy who’d flashed his death mask planted himself in front of me.

“Don’t just stand there, brat. This is your job. Your duty. To help the dead.” He shoved his face down to mine, purple and swollen again. “So start helping.”

“We will,” said a voice to my left.

I turned. The mob of ghosts parted. Margaret stood there, a saucer filled with dried plants in one hand, a burning match in the other.

“You’re scaring the child,” she said calmly. “Come over here and speak to me instead. I can help.”

The ghosts swarmed her. Then they screamed. They howled. They cursed. And they began to fade, fighting and struggling and cursing some more, but continuing to vanish
until only Margaret was standing there, blowing smoke from the burning plants in the saucer.

“Wh-what is that?” I asked.

“Vervain. It banishes ghosts. Most of them, anyway. There’s always a stubborn one.”

She strode past me and I turned to see a grandfatherly old man backing away.

“No, please,” he said. “I wasn’t bothering the child. I was only waiting my turn.”

Margaret kept advancing. Tori scuttled out of her way, looking around in confusion, only able to see and hear us.

“Please,” the man said. “This might be my only chance. It’s just a message.”

He looked past Margaret to me and his eyes glistened with tears. “Please, dear. Just one moment of your time.”

A creepy, queasy feeling snaked through me. This felt so wrong—a grown man begging me for a favor.

“Hold on,” I said to Margaret. “Can I hear what he wants to say? Please? He wasn’t one of the ones scaring me.”

Margaret hesitated, then waved for the man to continue quickly.

He took a moment to compose himself, then said, “I died two years ago. I fell asleep in my car and it went off a cliff. They never found it and they said…they said I took off, left my wife, kids, grandkids. All I need for you to do is send them a letter. Just tell them where they can find the car.”

“I have to write this down,” I said, turning to Margaret. I
was sure she had paper in the car. Even a cell phone would do—I could text in a message—but she shook her head.

“Wait,” Tori said. She pulled a few pieces of folded paper and a pen from her pocket. “I was going to make a list of stuff we need. Andrew said someone would go shopping for us later.”

I took down his wife’s address and the location of the car. It didn’t make sense to me—roads and landmarks I wouldn’t know—but the ghost said his wife would understand. He said to add a note from him, that he loved her and would never have left her.

“She might not believe I sent a message from the grave, but she’ll look anyway. I won’t take up any more of your time. Thank you.”

Before I could say a word, he disappeared.

“Now that was cool,” Tori said, taking the pencil and extra paper from me.

As I folded the page with the information, Margaret reached for it.

I handed it over. “I guess it’ll have to be mailed from someplace far from here, huh? Just in case.”

“It’s not being mailed.”

“What?” Tori and I said in unison.

“You never promise to deliver a message for a ghost, Chloe.
Never
.”

“But—”

Her hand cupped my elbow, voice going gentle. “You
can’t. If you do, then what you saw today will be only the beginning. Word will get out that you’re willing to help, and while there are perfectly good requests, like this one, you heard some of the others. Most of those ghosts were in limbo.
Sentenced
to limbo. You can’t help them, and you don’t want to, but that won’t keep them from hounding you day and night. So you have to ignore both: the good and the bad.”

I looked up into her face and briefly saw someone else there, a younger, sadder woman. I realized that what seemed like cold efficiency was self-preservation—the tough, no-nonsense necromancer, her heart hardened to the pleas of the dead. Was this my fate? Toughen up until I could throw that note in the trash and never think of it again? I didn’t ever want to be that way. Ever.

“Are you okay?” Tori whispered.

Margaret had moved away and was dumping out the ashes of the vervain. Tori touched my arm. I realized I was shaking. I wrapped my arms around myself. “I should have brought a sweater.”

“It’s still chilly when the sun goes in, isn’t it?” Margaret said as she came back to us.

She held up a baggie of dried stuff.

“Vervain,” she said. “I’ll give you some back at the house. Obviously you could use it.”

She tried to smile, but she was out of practice and only managed a twist of her lips.

“Thank you,” I said, and surprised myself by meaning it.

“Are you up to some more work?” she asked.

I glanced down at the bag she held, like it was a prize for a lesson well done, and as much as I wanted to quit, that eager-to-please part of me blurted, “Sure.”

“I
T’S EASY TO SUMMON
ghosts who want to be called,” Margaret said, “but sometimes you need to speak to a reluctant one. While we try to respect the wishes of the dead, you’ve just seen the importance of maintaining the upper hand in the necromancer-ghost relationship. Some really believe we exist only to help them, and we must quickly disabuse them of that notion. Being firm in your summoning is one way to establish the proper reputation.”

Margaret took the lead, going from grave to grave. We visited four ghosts, chatting with them for a minute, before she found one that didn’t want to answer her summons.

She let me try. The ghost didn’t answer me either.

“Do you know how to increase the power of the summons?” Margaret asked me.

“Concentrate harder?”

“Exactly. Slowly increase your concentration and sharpen your focus. Start doing it now. Gradually, gradually…”

We kept on like this for a while, Margaret getting frustrated by how slowly I was ramping up the juice. Finally, I felt an inner twinge that said “that’s enough,” and I said so.

She sighed. “I understand you’re nervous, Chloe. Whoever raised those bodies has frightened you.”

“
I
raised—”

“That’s not possible. Yes, you are clearly a powerful young necromancer, but without the proper tools and rituals, you just can’t do it. I don’t even have the ingredients with me.”

“But what if that’s one of the modifications they made? Making it easier for me to raise the dead?”

“There would be no reason to—”

“Why not?” Tori interjected. “Raising the dead must have some use.”

Armies of the dead
, I thought, and tried not to remember the old pictures I’d seen, crazy necromancers raising undead hordes.

“All right,” Margaret said. “You girls are worried because you don’t know what’s been done to you. But the only way to overcome that fear is to understand the extent of your powers and learn control. I’m not asking you to give it everything you have, Chloe. Just a little more.”

I did, and caught the first shimmer of an appearing spirit.

“Wonderful. Now, just a little more. Pace yourself. That’s it. Slowly, but firmly.”

That inner alarm clanged louder now.

“No more,” I said. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“But you’re making progress.”

“Maybe, but I’m not comfortable with going further.”

“If she doesn’t want to—” Tori began.

“Victoria?” Margaret held out the keys. “Please go sit in the car.”

Tori stood. “Come on, Chloe.”

I got to my feet. Margaret’s fingers wrapped around my leg. “You can’t walk away and leave a spirit like this. Look at him.”

The air shimmered. An arm poked through. A face began to take form, then faded before I could make out any features.

“He’s caught between limbo and the world of the living,” Margaret said. “You need to finish pulling him through.”

“Why don’t
you
?” Tori said.

“Because this is Chloe’s lesson.”

Tori started to argue again, but I silenced her with a shake of my head. Margaret was right. I had to learn to fix this problem. I wouldn’t be responsible for trapping a ghost between dimensions.

“I’ll push him back,” I said.

“Banish? That doesn’t work on trapped spirits.”

I shook my head. “I mean
push
him. Like summoning,
only in reverse. I’ve done it before.”

The look she gave me reminded me of when I was seven and I’d proudly informed our housekeeper that I’d donated half my clothing to a charity drive at school. It had seemed perfectly sensible to me—I didn’t need so much stuff—but she’d stared at me like Margaret was now, with a mix of horror and disbelief.

“You never, ever push a ghost back, Chloe. I’ve heard it’s possible, but—” She swallowed, like she was at a loss for words.

“I think it’s a bad thing,” Tori whispered.

“It’s a terrible, cruel thing. You have no idea where you’re pushing them. They could be lost in some—some…” She shook her head. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but you can never take that risk again. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “So I keep tugging this one…”

“That’s right.”

I knelt and kept at it until sweat trickled into my eyes. I went past the mental alarms and finally the ghost began to materialize.

“That’s it, Chloe. You’re almost there. Give him one last—”

Tori yelped. My eyes flew open. She was staring at a nearby oak tree, her eyes wide. Something was moving under the tree—a shapeless mat of blackish gray fur stretched over bone.

“Send it back,” Tori whispered. “Quick.”

“Ignore that and finish summoning this spirit,” Margaret said.

I turned on her in disbelief.

“Are you nuts?” Tori said. “Can you see—?”

“Yes, I can,” Margaret’s voice was eerily calm. “Apparently I was mistaken about the extent of Chloe’s powers.”

“You think?” Tori said.

I stared at Margaret. Her face was expressionless. In shock? She had to be. While she didn’t seem like the type to freak out, she’d just seen me raise a dead animal—without rituals, without ingredients, without even trying. Gaping in horror like Tori would be a perfectly reasonable response. But she only watched the thing, creeping toward us, pulling its mangled body along.

Its head lifted, as if it could sense me watching. It had no eyes, though, no snout, no ears, just a skull covered in bits of tattered fur and skin. Its head bobbed and wobbled, like it was trying to see who had called it forth.

“Chloe,” Margaret said sharply. “As horrible as that thing is”—did her voice quaver a little?—“your priority is this human ghost. Pull him through quickly.”

“B-but if I—”

She clasped my arm, panic edging into her voice. “You need to do this, Chloe.
Quickly
.”

The creature was closing the gap between us. It was a squirrel; I could see tufts of long, gray fur left on the ratlike tail.

It started to chatter, a horrible squeaking, rattling sound. It lifted its head, then turned its empty eye sockets my way and continued creeping forward, leaving a trail of fur and bits behind, the wind bringing the stink of rotting flesh.

Tori clapped her hand over her mouth. “Do something,” she whispered.

I shored up my nerve, closed my eyes, and plowed forward, throwing everything I had into one massive pull, imagining myself yanking the ghost—

The ground under us shook. Tori shrieked. Margaret gasped. My eyes flew open. The earth quavered and groaned and then, with an earsplitting crack, ripped open right in front of us.

Tori grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. We backpedaled as the ground yawned open with a thundering roar, dirt spilling into the crevasse and flying up, the musty stink of it billowing out.

The chasm split wider and deeper, an avalanche of dirt rushing in from all sides, tombstones swaying and rumbling. One toppled in, and still the earth split, until the top of a coffin appeared, shaking and rattling.

“Oh no,” Tori said. “No, no, no.”

She grabbed my arm again and tried to yank me backward. I brushed her off, walked to a place far enough away to be safe, then closed my eyes and concentrated on releasing the spirits. And if that sounds incredibly calm of me, let’s just say the earth wasn’t the only thing shaking. I had to drop to
my knees before they gave way.

I squeezed my eyes shut and kept at it even when Margaret grabbed my shoulders. She shouted for me to get up, but I concentrated on releasing. Release, release, release…

Someone screamed. Then someone else. I leaped up and looked around, but there was no one near the crack in the earth, now at least twenty feet long, a half-dozen coffins exposed.

The ground had gone still. All I could hear was the rustling of leaves. I looked up. The tree branches were covered in tiny, new buds. That wasn’t what was making the noise.

I followed the sound to the coffins. Not a rustling, but a scratching, nails raking the inside of the caskets. Then came the faint, muffled cries of ghosts trapped in those bodies, trying to claw their way—

I dropped to my knees again.

Release them. That’s your job now. Your only job. Release those spirits before the zombies—

Another scream, this time from behind me. A group of newly arrived mourners was coming our way, the pallbearers carrying the casket toward an open grave on the edge of the old section.

They’d stopped and were staring down at the casket. I started toward them, slowly, cautiously, gaze fixed on that coffin, telling myself they’d stopped because of the earth tremors.

A gasp from the crowd. Then I heard what they did—a
bump-bump
from inside the casket.

Relax. Relax and release. Release, release, re—

A low moan came from the casket, and every hair on my body rose. Another moan, louder. Muffled. Then a strangled cry from within.

Two of the pallbearers dropped their handles. Their end of the coffin tipped and the other four, startled, let go. The casket plummeted, hitting a gravestone as it fell, lid popping open with a crack.

The knot of mourners blocked my view, everyone grabbing the person nearest them—some for support and others to push them out of the way as they ran.

When the throng cleared, I saw an arm on the ground, the rest of the body still hidden behind the gravestone. It just lay there, hand palm downward, arm encased in a suit sleeve. Then the fingers moved, curling clawlike, gripping the ground as the corpse pulled himself forward, turning my way, toward the one who’d summoned him and—

And the one who’ll send him back. Now!

I squeezed my eyes shut and imagined the man, a vague figure in a suit. I imagined setting his soul free, sending up an apology with it, releasing him—

“Good,” Tori whispered beside me. “It’s stopped moving. It’s—No, wait. Keep going. Keep—Okay, it stopped.” A pause. “Still stopped.” Her voice was breathless with relief. “You did it.”

Maybe so, but I didn’t open my eyes to check. As Tori
went to assess the situation, I kept releasing spirits, picturing people in suits, people in dresses, people of all ages, animal spirits, spirits of every kind; and while I did, I listened, not just for the shouts and shrieks of the living, but the thumps and cracks and scratches of the living dead.

When I opened my eyes, Tori was coming along a path toward me, keeping back from the edge of the crevasse. People lined both sides now, eyeing it warily, waiting for the earth to move. But it didn’t.

“The dead are dead again,” Tori murmured as she came up beside me. “Everything’s quiet.”

Margaret stood along the chasm with the others. When I called to her, she turned slowly, eyes meeting mine, and in them I saw fear. No, not fear. Horror and revulsion.

You aren’t like her. She sees that now, what you are, what you can do, and it scares her. Scares and disgusts.

She waved us back to the car, but didn’t move herself, like she couldn’t bear to walk with me.

“Stupid bitch,” Tori muttered. “Oh, let’s take the necromancer with superpowers to the cemetery. Of course you aren’t going to raise the dead, you silly girl.”

“I’d say I showed her, but I really would have rather not.”

Tori’s laugh quavered. “We should probably get out of here before anyone starts asking questions.”

“Not too fast,” I said. “We don’t want to look like we’re running from the scene.”

“Right.”

As we walked, we gawked—it would seem weird if we didn’t. We gaped at the crevasse. We squinted up at the sky. We pointed at the fallen casket and whispered, all the while walking as fast as we dared, trying to look like we were as shocked and confused as everyone else.

“Girls!” a man called. “Hold on.”

I turned slowly and saw a middle-aged man bearing down on us. I tried to get Margaret’s attention, tell her we might have trouble, but she was looking the other way, leaving us to deal with it.