Page 9 of Haunted Heart
Half of the Latin is nonsense, and as the lights flicker, I know Julia’s laughing at me.
“Ignis ardeat.” I feel the flames jump and hear the antique bulbs crackle as I grab more random words that will sound like something they’d expect in a summoning. “Salire leporem et natare anguis.”
Julia throws the front door open and the wind moans through the house.
Our audience makes the appropriate sounds: screams and a spookedoh!or two. Even one appreciativeoooofrom Jonas on my left.
I open my eyes and see Rose has all but crawled into Perry’s lap.
He doesn’t look disappointed. His hand between her wings, her face buried in his neck…
Dylan leans over to me. “Remote control puppetry?”
“Nope, just a regular poltergeist.” The lights surge a little. And maybe she’s right to be offended. Julia’s notregular.
“Julia?” I ask, trying not to smile and give myself away. “Are you here?”
A little dust swirls around the place where I’ve written “yes” on the floor in chalk.
“She’s here!” Margie says, hushed, but with eyes wide.
Dylan snorts and takes another drink of his beer, downing the last of it and setting the second bottle with the first.
At least I shouldn’t have to worry about its effectiveness.
“Do you have a message for us, Julia?”
Another little swirl around the yes, and then, in the pile of chalk dust at the center, she starts to draw her letters.
Even Dylan seems to takethatseriously.
The message is simple, and I let the five of them parse it out.
“G,” Margie says, spelling out the word as it forms in the chalk dust. “E-T. Get?”
“O-U.” As Perry says “T,” all of the antique bulbs burst in their fixtures, candles flaring. The shutters rattle and the curtains fly away from their windows.
Rose screams, Margie and Perry scrambling away from the circle.
I say the second half of the spell under my breath, as quickly as I can. “Take its soul far away, never to see the light of day. Deliver me from it without delay. Whatever the price, it’s his to pay.”
Julia goes a little overboard, tipping the table over so the drinks and ice spill across the floor.
Rose’s wings move like Julia’s tugging on them and the woman bolts for the door. Margie and Perry are right behind her.
I get up and follow after them, watching as they scream all the way back to Perry’s car.
I bite the inside of my cheek so that my smile doesn’t turn into a laugh, and a moment later, my phone buzzes in my jacket pocket.
I pull it out and see Rose’s face, sticking her tongue out at the screen before I answer.
“Hey,” she says, breathlessly. “That was… amazing, but I’ve seen too many movies. We arenotcoming back.”
I laugh, because I can’t argue with her practicality. “That’s okay.”
“Tell Jonas he has to get a ride back to campus with Dylan.”
Perry has already pulled out of the makeshift lot—there are two more cars now—heading back toward the road to town.
