"Ben…" Emmeline said his name somewhere in the storm still raging through the room, rattling the pictures off the walls and shaking the floorboards underfoot.
Benedict thumbed open a pocketknife in his right hand, sliced the pad of his thumb, and dropped blood onto the newly etched seal. "Close your eyes," he ordered Mr. Whittle as he stood. "If you don't look, it won't see you." A flimsy patch for a leaking boat; no one could keep their eyes closed forever. His brother had done this to him once, hidden him from a spirit while they finished the job. Of course, he had been a child at the time. They had dragged him along in hopes that the danger of the situation would bring his gifts to birth. It hadn't worked, though he had been given enough material to fuel his nightmares for life and a thorough understanding that there were plenty of things in the world he could not see—and that did not make them any less real.
"Benedict!" Emmeline shouted.
He turned to see her standing much closer, eyes big and gaze cutting between him and something between them. Oh God, it was right there? Right in front of him? He rolled the piece of chalk between his fingers, thoughtlessly wetting it with his blood. All at once, the room stilled, and not in a calm-at-the-end-of-a-storm sort of way, but frozen, caught in a second that held fast. And then the frames of the pictures on the floor burst, the walls cracked, and Benedict was lifted off his feet. He hated being lifted by spirits. It wasn't the sense of hands jerking him upward. It wasn't a pull on his clothing or a grip on his arm. It was pressure everywhere, seizing up his body and dragging him into the air as though gravity had abandoned him.
He couldn't breathe; his only comfort was in knowing that it wouldn't last. It never did. It took too much energy to lift someone. Not even the most powerful poltergeists could hold a person long enough to smother them though they had plenty of other ways of doing damage.
Gravity returned to him. His body hurtled through the air, across the room, and slammed shoulder-first into the half-circle of windows. They shattered, and daylight blinded him. An embarrassing "hmph" escaped his lips when he tumbled out the window and rolled down the slant of the roof.
He landed on his back in a thick bed of peonies, blooms bursting with white and pink petals all around him. For a long, dizzy second, he lay there, staring up at the bright, blue sky. At least it hadn't been a rose bed. He sat up, shaky hands patting himself in search of broken bones. None. He stood, grabbing hold of an iron fence to steady himself before noticing the spikes at the top that could have easily impaled him if he had been a couple of inches to the left. He gagged a little, almost losing his lunch.
"What are you doing?" Emmeline yelled.
He looked up at the broken window, expecting her to be leaning out it.
"Get your shit together!" she snapped, and he jumped, finding her standing on the other side of the fence. She passed through it when she closed in on him. "He knows why you're here."
Benedict groaned. That was the problem with his ghost partner—if she saw into other spirits, they could see just as well into her.
"Where?" he grunted the question.
Her arm stretched out, pointing toward the creek and the little shed at the back of the property.
Benedict nodded, head throbbing when he did. He started dragging himself in that direction. His back twinged, his legs stiff, but every step got easier, faster, under the mounting sense of urgency.
The slope of the grass helped, downhill always better than uphill. He sank his hand into his pocket again, fishing out another bit of chalk. He couldn't remember dropping the last piece, somewhere between being picked up by a ghost and tossed out a window. Luckily, he always carried extra.
"He's coming," Emmeline said, suddenly beside him, keeping pace and throwing quick glances back toward the house.
Benedict almost lost his step when he reached the shed beside the narrow dock. He ground his teeth against the sharp pain shooting up his back. Sunlight glittered off the clear stream as it rolled over the stones, darkening under the shadow of the dock. He shouldered open the flimsy door and fell inside. Dust billowed up from the old wood planks. Crates of lawn decorations, fishing rods and supplies, and gardening tools gathered in the corners. He couldn't help but notice the ax leaning against the wall, cobwebs collected around it as though binding it to the spot. Falling to his knees, Benedict swept his arms across the floor to push the stacks of junk aside, clearing a spot. He touched the chalk down, barely starting to draw the seal when a furious, booming voice made his stomach drop.
"What's his name?" Benedict shouted.
"Roger Clifton James," Emmeline answered, voice steady but outside the shed.
He wrote the name inside the seal, looked over his work once, and then nodded, crawling to his feet and reaching for the old ax. His fingers brushed the rough wood wall, the corner, cobwebs, but not the handle of the ax. He twisted toward it, staring at the empty spot before turning a full circle to study the little shed. The ax was gone.
The roaring of the ghost had ended, nothing but the gentle rush of the creek and the groaning of floorboards underfoot.
Catching his breath, Benedict slowly opened the shed door. The ax lay on the soft, grassy bank of the stream. He took a step outside, gaze sliding up to where Emmeline stood not far beyond the weapon. She leaned up on her toes, toward nothing he could see. She spoke softly. Had she calmed the ghost? Soothed Mr. James into a trance of some kind?
Benedict took long, careful strides toward the ax, as though being quiet would allow him to go undetected.
He could make out the soft sound of Emmeline's voice, rushed, as though the words she spoke were coming out piled on top of one another, no spaces in between. He was almost to the ax when he chanced another glance up at her. Her eyes shone a vivid green, brighter than any blade of grass or perfectly lit emerald. The corners of her mouth grew sharp, teeth clicking every so often around her hushed words. It couldn't be calming, whatever she said to the ghost. It just couldn't be.
He didn't have the time to worry about it or second guess his choices. He needed to get the ax and break the seal in the shed. He needed—
His breath came out in a cold cloud just as he touched the handle of the ax. He stared down, the grass gone and his fingers curling into snow to wrap around the handle. That wasn't possible. This spirit couldn't be strong enough to make him see something like this, to feel the dry cold of the snow clinging to his skin.
Benedict had only begun to straighten his legs and stand when a body slammed into his, lifting him up and pushing him back. Together, he and the ghost crashed into the water. He felt it break under his back, not the way water should break, but the way thin ice might. Cold enveloped his body, but he felt it most around his skull and down his spine, agony slicing through him with such a shock that he bowed, arching into the other man. He was pushed down until his back touched the stones at the bottom. He tried to get to the surface, but a weight held him down.
He forced his eyes open, cold stinging at every nerve. The blue water shimmered with shapes of the world beyond the surface, bright with all the white outlines of winter. The surface was so close. He reached up, his fingers pushing out of the water, chunks of ice bumping his knuckles.
She stood there at the water's edge, looking back at him. For one terrible second, Benedict stilled, staring at Emmeline. Her mouth opened, gasping for air, and tears slid from her green eyes. Misery pooled in her expression, swirling in all the details of it. He saw everything in her then, splayed out before him. She was frightened, heartbroken, furious, and unsure. But what she wasn't was merciful.