Page 7 of Poltergeists & Change of Life

Nana snorted and said, “Yeah, if the haystack was actively trying to dismember you.”

Nina’s complexion rivaled that of our ghostly houseguest. "Same story in the Sanctum. Though, I stumbled upon a treasure trove of questionable magazines from the '70s. I don’t know how we missed those in her file cabinets. We should probably have a family meeting about those later. Assuming we survive this little supernatural soiree, of course."

I opened my mouth to reply with something suitably witty and leader-like but was rudely interrupted by a thunderous crash from upstairs. It was followed by more of Hattie's nightmare-fuel laughter. "I suppose it’s too much to hope thatour resident poltergeist has simply stubbed her ethereal toe," I muttered.

Because our survival instincts had taken an impromptu vacation, we raced upstairs. The scene that greeted us in the library would have sent Marie Kondo into conniptions. Hattie floated in the center of the room. She was surrounded by a maelstrom of books, lamps, and Binx’s favorite chew toy. It was like a poltergeist yard sale. If yard sales involved mortal peril and the very real possibility of death by literature.

I ducked as a particularly weighty tome of ancient runes whistled past my head. "Hattie!" I shouted. My body didn’t bend anymore so I barely dodged an airborne bookend. "I appreciate your enthusiasm for redecorating, but don't you think this is a tad excessive? If you wanted to rearrange the furniture, you could have just asked!"

"Rearrange?" Hattie's voice crackled through the air. It dripped with enough bitterness to make a lemon seem sweet. "Oh, Phoebe. Sweet, foolish Phoebe. I don't want to rearrange. I want to destroy. I saved you, and this is my reward? Trapped here, bound to this wretched place like a dog on a chain? You took my power, my life, my very essence. And now, I want it back."

Her form swelled and doubled in size. Darkness radiated from her like heat from a furnace. It would have been easier to deal with simple anger. What emanated from her went beyond that. It was deeper and more primal. Lyra's dark magic had tapped into a well of pain and resentment before twisting Hattie into something monstrous.

Guilt clawed at my insides, threatening to consume me. Somehow, I'd allowed this to happen to her. Some capable protégé I turned out to be. Anger rose to meet those emotions fast enough to give me whiplash. Ah, the joys of the emotional rollercoaster created by pregnancy hormones. Myrage fluctuated more than my cravings. It was directed at Lyra for this violation, at myself for not protecting Hattie's legacy better, and even at Hattie for allowing herself to be turned into this vengeful specter.

"News flash, Hattie," I snapped in a voice sharp enough to cut glass. "You're not getting it back. And more importantly, you don't want it. That’s Lyra using you. She’s turned you into her personal Casper from hell.

Nana lifted the shoulders of the stylish top she’d taken from Hattie’s closet. “And, let me tell you, it's not a good look on you. You have much better taste."

Aidon made a noise in the back of his throat before he moved with the grace of a dancer. He had the precision of a surgeon when his blade sliced through the air, deflecting the airborne debris. The metal glowed with ethereal light and left trails in the air like the world's most lethal sparkler.

"As riveting as this dialogue is," he shouted over the paranormal pandemonium, "perhaps we could focus on not dying?”

Nana gave him a droll stare. “Why? Because this is escalating faster than a politician's promises during election season?”

Stella dropped to her knees and shouted, “I'd rather not become a permanent fixture on the wall if it's all the same to you guys."

"You’re right,” I told them all. “We have to think.” There had to be a way to stop this. Something occurred to me as I considered the crap we’d been through recently. “Lyra always leaves a trail," I muttered.

Nina snatched something from the floor and shoved it into my hands. “There could be something in these journals. Hattie was brilliant and powerful, and she might have detailed something.”

“You're brilliant,” I smiled at my daughter and moved behind a toppled bookshelf. She had one of them in her hands, and we frantically flipped through the old diaries. The pages were yellowed with age and covered in spidery handwriting that made my eyes cross. There was an elegance in the script of previous generations that was missing today.

"Find anything yet?" Stella called from across the room. Her usually bubbly demeanor was replaced with a look of intense concentration as she poured her magic into a shimmering barrier. "Because I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. But hey, at least it's a great core workout! Who needs Pilates when you've got poltergeists, am I right?"

"There’s hope I might see my feet again after these babies are born,” I quipped as I considered the supernatural chaos we often found ourselves in. “Although, this isn't your average, run-of-the-mill haunting. We're in full-on, batten-down-the-hatches, where's-my-holy-water poltergeist territory. I'm talking 'make Linda Blair look like a choir girl' levels of supernatural shenanigans."

"You don't say?" Stella's question ended with a yelp. She had barely dodged a flying candlestick from our familiar new poltergeist. The stick had embedded itself in the wall with enough force to make a professional darts player weep with envy. "And here I thought we were just filming the world's most interactive episode of 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition'. Silly me!"

I was about to retort with something suitably snarky when Nana's voice cut through the chaos like a hot knife through butter. "Oh, for the love of all that's unholy and then some!" she barked, brandishing an old leather-bound book that was vibrating with enough energy to power a small city. "You two couldn't find your posteriors with both hands, a map, and a team of bloodhounds. The answer is in here. This appears to be one ofLyra's journals, may she rot in whatever circle of hell is reserved for magical psychopaths."

“It’s the ninth circle,” Aidon supplied with a growl. “My father is building a special kind of hell just for this witch.”

I vaulted, err rolled, over my makeshift barricade. It was thanks to luck that a flying lamp that was auditioning for the role of 'deadly projectile' in Brad Pitt’s next action flick missed my head. “How did her journal get here? I don’t think we can trust this,” I said as I flopped like a beached whale as I tried to get off the back of the bookshelf.

“I’m not sure that’s true.” Aidon stowed his sword and helped me to my feet. “I never met Hattie but this could be her work.”

“Aidon is right,” Tarja interjected. “Hattie would have looked for a way to help us while fighting the Dark magic trying to grab hold of her. I can see her using what power she had to grab this journal and bring it here.”

“I bet that’s how Lyra was finally able to turn Hattie,” Binx, my mom’s familiar, added. “In fact, I’d say Lyra has been trying to tunnel through and turn Hattie from the moment she gave Phoebe her power.”

Mom kicked a couple of books away from Nana while nodding her head. “That would fit. Look for an answer in there. We can evaluate the information carefully.”

Nodding, I grabbed the journal from Nana, and a jolt of energy rolled through me. It was so strong it made my teeth rattle like castanets in the hands of an overenthusiastic flamenco dancer. It made me open my magical senses so I could evaluate the book for a hidden spell. Hattie’s hurricane of rage overwhelmed me for a moment, reminding me of when I first got my magic and didn’t know how to filter out input so I wasn’t overtaken. Working around the chaos took longer than I wanted.

"Lyra bound Hattie to this house," I said as I flipped through the pages. The words writhed on the paper like literary snakes."She used some kind of dark artifact to amp up Hattie's power and keep her tied to the place she died. I guess a pissed-off ghost wasn't dangerous enough on its own. No, she needed the magical equivalent of a triple espresso and a bag of pixie dust."

"That’s the icing on this crap cake," Nana drawled in a voice dripping with enough sarcasm to fill the Mariana Trench. "We need to find that artifact and skip the whole 'saving Hattie' schtick. We can't let sentiment stop us from doing what’s necessary."

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