Page 33 of My Inherited House Might be Haunted

Chelsea nodded at the hamper I was still lugging. “That has all of the candles. Start setting those up to form a pathway. Start here and lead toward the arbor.”

Calix joined me in taking out tea lights, and then he set them on the paved stones about six inches apart. I followed what he was doing on the other side, mirroring it, but also keeping an eye on what Chelsea was doing. She’d taken purple chalk out from a pocket and drawn a circle, then started writing other things inside of it.

Loretta called from inside, “I’m bringing people out with me!”

“Go ahead!” Chelsea called back. “Almost done with setup!”

Eh. We were?

Then I realized her magic circle was directly under the arbor. And the arbor had a distinct waver to the air, almost like a heat wave, but it was more solid than that? Hard to explain, but it felt like power. A tingling sense kept sweeping over the fine hairs of my arms.

“Doorway,” I murmured to myself, belatedly realizing what I was seeing. “She created a doorway with the arch.”

“Exactly.” Calix came in closer to throw an arm around my shoulders. “You catch on quick.”

“Why the lights?”

“Lights help fuel the spell, but it also brings in elemental energy to help open the door. Between that, her Reiki training in ushering the dead on, and her witch ability to physically open the door to the next plane, it’s like a solid pathway for ghosts.”

A triple whammy, if you will. Damn. No wonder ghosts told each other to come here. They were absolutely guaranteed a path to the afterlife without problems. I’d come here too.

Calix fetched out lighters from the bottom of the basket and we both bent, lighting each of the candles. It took us ten minutes, and by the time I straightened, Loretta had a whole herd of ghosts out with her. I knew that for a fact because the second one of those ghosts stood in a walkway, they became visible to my eyes. Most of them gave me a smile and a wave before jauntingalong merrily on the path. The second they reached the arbor, they disappeared completely.

“Damn.” I let out a low whistle. “This really is effective.”

Chelsea came around the arbor to stand at my side. “It’s a nice system. The arbor gives them the feeling of a doorway, something that makes sense to them. We tried putting the walkway somewhere else but it’s like they got confused on what to do at the end. But the arbor gives them something to gothroughand it connected perfectly.”

Interesting. It did make sense. I’d get to the end of a walkway of lights and stop too, if I were in their shoes. Putting the arbor at the end was smart of them.

I stood there watching as ghost after ghost went down the walkway, each patiently waiting their turn before going. Well, with a few exceptions, as we had couples and families wanting to go together, which according to Chelsea was perfectly fine. The more I watched, the more uncertain I was about the whole setup. Why was it temporary like this?

“Uh, Chelsea? Any reason why we can’t just leave permanent outdoor lights up?”

She blinked at me, head canted in confusion. “You want these on the ground permanently?”

“Well, wouldn’t string lights overhead work? As long as it goes toward the arbor.”

She had her mouth open on a protest only to pause and look thoughtful. “We never tried it because again, energy. But if a technomage like you sets it up…”

Loretta joined me on my other side. “I think it’ll work fine. The need is light. It doesn’t matter if it’s on the ground or in the sky.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong”—and I likely was, since I knew basically nothing about how this all worked—“but if you made your sigil into, say, a light box or something I could connect to aswitch like the light strings, then we could set this up to where it automatically turned on every night for maybe an hour? Would that work?”

Both women looked at me like I had just spouted wisdom of the ages.

I think that meant it was a good idea?

“My god,” Chelsea whispered. “Yes. I think that would work. Especially because your power would be fueling it. It wouldn’t solve the issue of the ones who are having trouble passing over though.”

“But you could swing by once a week to help them,” Loretta pointed out. “Just as you used to when Ruth was alive. But this way, those who can pass on with only a little help can just go. Rhett won’t have to live with dozens of ghosts all the time.”

Please and thank you. Really wasn’t keen on that.

Chelsea beamed at me. “You really are a technomage.”

I personally thought this was obvious, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe I just thought along tech lines. “Happy to help. Uh, in return, who can help teach me?”

Chelsea patted my shoulder, still beaming. “No worries, man. I’ve got you.”

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