“Hmm. Good to know.” I get up to refill my coffee cup. “It’s too early for tea, by the way.”
“It is never too early for tea.” She sips the non-tea. British people everywhere just cringed. Not sure what would offend them more between fake ghost tea or drinking it willy nilly instead of at ‘tea time.’
Whatever. It’s coffee time for me. I pour the cup, and let out a sigh. “So, what do you think is going on here? Let me guess, the spirit guardian hasn’t said a thing?”
Millicent’s weak smile confirms my suspicion she didn’t receive any concrete info. Yeah, the ‘ghostly cheat code’ never shares any good information. Sometimes she gets information from the spirit world, but it never seems to be what I need to know in order to make my life easier. Ugh. This whole ‘here to learn and grow’ thing is a real pain in my backside. Speaking of said backside, maybe I should insure it like J-Lo. Sure, I may not be shaking it anymore to make money, but I’m still sitting on it most of the day at work. Good thing I have a gym membership.
“Figures.” Honestly, expecting Millicent to pluck the reasons Vincente’s house is haunted out of thin air is foolish on my part. Nothing is ever that easy. I take a swig of coffee, leaning against the counter. I sit enough at the station. “Do you think we’re going to need Sam for this one?”
“I’m not sure.” Millicent fidgets at the phantom teacup. “It pains me greatly to say this, but it does not seem likely she will be able to rejoin the trifecta. Her immortal nature has permanently affected her relationship with witchcraft. It is like holding a candle to the sun and expecting it to compare.”
I sigh. She’s not wrong, and that’s what annoys me the most. Sam and I have been working a few times a month on her magic, basically doing the Mr. Miyagi/Karate Kid thing. Only, her wax is off more than it’s on. Whatever soul memories she has of being a witch in hundreds of past lives are either gone or buried under an avalanche of supernatural energy. She is learning some things, but as far as her joining the trifecta goes, she’s like the one person in every Zoom meeting who’s stuck with a bad internet connection, continually dropping off and reconnecting.
“Yeah.” I stare into my coffee. “She knows it, too. I’d expected her to be more upset, really.”
Millicent offers a sagely nod. “It is difficult to mourn what you don’t remember. In this life, the universe had bigger plans for her than witchcraft. Unfortunately, those plans reshaped the link between our souls.”
Okay, sad now. Have to sit. I flop in the chair opposite Millicent. “Knowing you’re right and liking it aren’t the same. I adore Sam, and I’m totally not giving up on helping her work on magic if she wants to pursue it, but… yeah. I don’t think it’s meant to be for her to rejoin the trifecta.”
“Trust the Universe will bring us what we need.” Millicent sips her not-tea again. Is it weird I smell it? “No, dear. It’s not strange for you to smell my tea.”
“Why do I smell your… umm, unreali-tea?”
She stares at me, rolls her eyes, then sighs. “Because I want you to.”
“Right. So, the Universe put us together in the first place, then pulls Sam away from us.” I huff a strand of hair off my face, take a huge gulp of coffee, and set my mug down. “Not sure Vincente has time to wait for the machinery of creation to get around to sending us backup.”
“Then we will do our best with what we have.”
“Lovely…” Looks like I’m going to spend some time in the Spirit Chair looking for signs before work today.
“Don’t forget to pick up a scratch-off ticket when you get gas,” says Millicent.
Yeah, there’s that, too. Millicent convinced me to do something I never saw myself trying: we invoked a spell to attract a little prosperity. Not out of greed, I swear. Renting in Beverly Hills is not cheap. If I lived in like Oklahoma or something, what I’m paying in rent would probably cover two mortgages on nice houses.
No luck yet, but we’re not trying to become wealthy. Merely get to a point I’m not two bad months away from being kicked out.
Chapter Four
Moment of Calm
Sunday evening, I drive out to Vincente Espina’s house.
He lives a few miles south of Kramer Junction. I take Route 295 to a little dirt road going east into the Kramer Hills. A large sign at the intersection (as much as a dirt trail meeting a paved road counts as an intersection) bears a painting of a little wooden building beneath the words ‘Loughton Minerals.’ Multiple sheets of paper stuck to the sign appear to be warnings of some kind, but I don’t bother looking close enough to read what they say.
I’ve no interest in the mining company.
The artwork and lettering on the sign makes me think it went up in the 1940s or 1950s. Upon reaching the fork in the dirt trail where it splits between the mining operation on the left and Vincente’s house on the right, I get a good view inside the fence. The buildings look so run down it’s unlikely any actual mining operations have gone on there in decades. It’s a lot newer than I expected, though. Part of me wants to say the place shut down in the Seventies. No particular reason, just a feeling.
I continue driving the hundred yards or so to Vincente’s house and park beside a newish white Ford pickup. The instant I cut the engine and get out of my Honda, it feels like someone’s watching me. To make things truly weird, the mood isn’t at all like an angry haunt. A hopeful anticipatory energy is in the air, kinda like how when I’m waiting for a package to arrive from Amazon, I perk up every time a truck drives down my street. At least the house is giving off dread. That’s better. Angry spirits willing to strangle people should be radiating fear and ominousness. Not reacting like I’m a mail order victim they’re excited has finally arrived. Talk about psychotic.
Vincente is nowhere to be seen, so the sense of being watched isn’t coming from him staring out the window. When he invited me for dinner, the vibe coming over my psychic connection to him felt legit. The guy’s simply trying to be nice. Some men like living alone and don’t feel the need to hit on every woman who talks to them. It’s a refreshing change.
The place is exactly as it looked when I remote-viewed it, a brownish-yellow single-story ranch style house. Not terribly big. Looks like it’s had some recent work, like a new roof and a central air unit likely installed by the previous owner. Maybe there’s a reason why the ghost is so angry. I’d be pretty damn pissed off to spend the money on central air and drop dead before getting much use out of it.
Anyway, there’s no fence around the property or a true backyard, really. Hills start a couple hundred feet behind the building, which is otherwise surrounded by flat, open dirt and scattered scrub. The air here smells like dust and Mexican cooking.
I spend a moment looking around, trying to get a ‘read’ on the land in sight. Sometimes, if the source of a nasty haunt involves human remains, the location of their body calls out to me. Here, I do feel something, but it’s not a darkness hanging over a particular spot of ground… it’s the watched sensation—coming from the direction of the mine.