Page 36 of Air Of Mystery
Jim—the restaurant owner from St. Charles—called to let me know that his dinner reservations were now booked solid, and that they’d even been enjoying an uptick in lunch traffic. I received more good news a day later, when I finally heard back via email from Don, the owner of the house on Henry Street, and was given permission to return.
He’d given me an hour. Don thought I was there to do a follow-up for my show, when actually I was making sure that any remnants of Kenna’s magick were completely erased. So, it wasn’t a lie...not truly. I would be ‘following up.’ I just wasn’t following up for my YouTube channel.
As Charlie said, that concealment spell I’d put on the basement wall would only hold for so long. If any other groups or investigators went in there, I didn’t want them to see or be able to document any evidence of Kenna’s elemental magick.
It was a bright sunny day when I returned to the old Victorian. And while I did not take my team with me, I didn’t go alone either. This time I took along a couple of the strongest, most capable Witches that I knew. My grandmother, Althea Blackthorn-Golden, and my cousin Orion.
We pulled around back and entered the property via the alley this time. It was more discreet this way, and as I parked the car in the rear driveway, my grandmother leaned forward in her seat to peer out the windshield at the house.
“The exterior of the home certainly is a hideous color,” she said. “The trees and the lawn are also all dead.”
“I have a theory,” I said as they stepped from the car, “that whatever is here, has also tainted the land around the house.”
“Causing even the trees to die…” Grandma Althea nodded in agreement.
Planting his feet on the brown grass, Orion closed his eyes and took a moment to sense the area. I stood still and waited.
Orion’s lip curled and he opened his eyes to focus on me. “You didn’t exaggerate about the sour energy that is on this property.”
“There’s a field of negativity around the house and yard,” I said as I walked around him to go to the trunk of my car. “I’ve never experienced anything like it.” Popping the trunk, I pulled out a satchel of equipment.
He took the satchel from me. “Well despite all that, thanks for asking me to come along for the clean up, Skye.”
“Thank you for coming,” I said, closing the trunk.
“Tyler is my friend,” he reminded me. “The least I can do is help you make sure that whatever entity that attacked him is gone for good.”
“I told you when we talked the other day,” I began as we fell into step together, “that my goal in coming here today is two-fold. One: to remove any traces of Kenna’s magick and two: to try and gather more evidence of whatever it is that has taken hold of this house.”
“First we need to identify it,” our grandmother said, joining us as we headed for the back door. “Knowledge will be the key to removing it.”
Glancing up at the small security camera mounted over the back door, I frowned. It hung crookedly; someone had tried to yank it down. The wires had also been torn out.
“Interesting,” I said.
Orion noticed it too. “Think kids tried to get in and when they couldn’t, they vandalized the camera?”
“Maybe,” I replied, but I truly didn’t think that was the case. The neighborhood families avoided this house. Its negative reputation was too well known.
Using the key code from the owner, I let us inside. We entered through a small stoop that stepped up into the kitchen—which had recently been painted. Despite the strong scent of the paint and cleaner, the home still smelled stale. Or maybe it was the bad vibes that made it seem that way to me.
My grandmother wrinkled her nose. “Cheap paint, pine scented cleaner, and a lingering hint of pet urine...an unholy trifecta if there ever was one.”
“The owner must have hired out someone to paint and try and clean things up,” I said, looking around.
The cabinets were painted gray, and the walls were a matte white. Also, the kitchen floor had been replaced with new tiles. Seeing the spruce up in the kitchen caused me no small amount of alarm. Clearly, Don the owner was going to try to put the house up for rent again.
Orion frowned at the walls. “Whoever painted in here did a crappy job. There’s drips everywhere.” My cousin knelt down and ran his fingers over the kitchen floor. “This is peel and stick tile, the cheap stuff.”
Taking my flashlight and an EMF meter from the satchel, I switched the meter on and began a scan. Quickly I discovered that the readings were all within a normal range. Shocked, I quickly walked the rest of the first floor.
There was nothing out of the ordinary. There were no energy fluctuations, and no cold spots in the home.
As I moved around, I saw that the dining and living room areas had been recently painted too. In fact, a few gallons ofpaint were still resting on the floor on top of a folded drop cloth. The old blankets that had once hung from bent curtain rods were gone and replaced with new window blinds.
Behind me, my grandmother nosed around. Going down the hall and checking the first-floor rooms for herself. “I don’t sense anything negative here,” she announced. “It simply feels like an old house that has seen better days.”
“I’m not picking up any energy spikes with my equipment either,” I told her.
