Mr. Conjure, page 6
“Are you having a party?”
“We came for a visit.”
“Who did you come to see?”
“We came to see you.”
“But you can’t see me, can you? I can’t see me. It wouldn’t be fair if you could see me, and I can’t see me. I can see you. Can you see you?”
The others were all watching Mary.
“No, we can’t see you, but we can talk. We’re talking now.”
“Talk?”
“Yes, we’d like to talk.”
“You’re not going to make fun of me?”
“No, of course not. I’m Mary. What’s your name?”
“You are making fun of me.”
“No, I’m not. Why would you say that?”
Everyone jumped in fright when scratches started forming on the wall. With jagged lines, the words I’m Mary appeared.
“Mary, what’s going on?” Rachel asked nervously.
“I don’t know.”
“Hey, there’s no need for that.”
“You’re not here. I’m not here. They shouldn’t be here.”
“I think that’s your cue to go,” Harvey said.
Mary could appreciate Harvey’s concern, but they needed answers. “Was there someone else who shouldn’t have been here? A girl our age?”
“No one should be here.”
“What did you do to Jenny?” Rachel asked.
“What did you do to Jenny?” The ghost parroted back.
“What did you do?” Mary demanded again.
“What did YOU do? Invite the monsters. They like to play. Let’s have a party.”
More scratches began to form on the walls. They snaked along the plaster. Eddie gave an “Eep!” and moved away when they started coming toward him.
“What are the monsters?” Mary asked.
“I used to see them all the time. But when I died, they went away. They don’t like dead girls. They’ll like you until you’re like me.”
Mary was getting frustrated. They were going nowhere fast with the ghost.
“Monsters?” Rachel asked.
“The ghost is schizo. No wonder Jenny freaked out.”
“I’m not crazy! They’re real!”
“The only monster here is you.”
“Get out! Get out! I don’t want you here! GET OUT!”
Scratches started snaking across the ceiling. Chunks of plaster came loose and began to fall. Kyle grabbed Mary and pulled her out of the house. Taryn had to do the same to Rachel. Eddie luckily had enough sense on his own to get out without assistance.
“Okay, I think we know what freaked Jenny out. Great work. Let’s leave,” Taryn said.
Mary was okay with this idea. She didn’t want to go back in and tangle with a crazy ghost.
Rachel shook her head emphatically. “No! Jenny wasn’t spooked by a ghost. She said the thing followed her home. The ghost can’t do that. And it mentioned monsters. You said it yourself, Mary. We need to find out what the monsters are.”
“The ghost is crazy. There’s no figuring out crazy. Jenny was stupid. Scared herself half to death and then let the fear get to her,” Mary said.
“How can you say that? You don’t attempt suicide because something spooked you.”
“You do if you can’t let it go. Let it go, Rachel.”
Rachel threw her hands up. “I can’t believe you’re willing to accept this bullshit. There’s more here. I know it!”
And before Taryn or anyone else could stop her, Rachel ran back into the house. Mary ran after her.
“Mary, wait!” Kyle called, but she couldn’t wait. The ghost was going to hurt Rachel, and she couldn’t let that happen.
She was only a few steps behind Rachel, but when she got inside, she didn’t see her.
“Rachel!” she yelled.
“She went upstairs,” Harvey said.
Mary hadn’t even seen the stairs when she’d been in the house. She found them in a hall off the main room.
“Don’t run!” Harvey shouted as she started to go up. She immediately knew why. The first step felt springy under her foot. If she put too much weight on it, her foot would go through the wood. Rachel was already upstairs though. She grabbed the banister and went up the stairs carefully.
“I SAID GET OUT!”
“Rachel, come back! The ghost is really upset!”
“Ask her about the monsters!” Rachel yelled back.
Mary made it to the top of the stairs. There was a hallway with four doors off of it. Mary couldn’t tell which one Rachel had gone into.
“Do you want to know how I killed myself?”
“No, not really.”
“It wasn’t falling down the stairs!”
A force hit Mary and pushed her back. She grabbed the banister.
“That’s enough of that, young lady. Mary doesn’t mean you any harm.”
The pushing stopped, but energy swirled around her. Harvey had to be blocking the girl ghost.
“I didn’t mean any harm until the murder attempt,” Mary muttered.
“I’m Mary! I mean harm!”
“Rach, let’s go! It’s too dangerous up here!”
“You go! I got this.”
“Got what?! Come on!”
Rachel darted from one room to another. Mary had to push her way through the ghosts which was just too weird. It was like going through a cold static cloud.
“You girls gotta get outta here! This little she-demon is not letting up.”
“I’m not a demon! I know demons!”
“Yeah, whatever you say, sweetheart.”
Mary was all for getting out of there, but she wasn’t leaving Rachel behind. She went to the room she’d seen Rachel dart into. Rachel was crouched down sifting through garbage.
“Is this it?” she asked holding up an old shoe.
“Is that what? Come on, we need to get out of here.”
“Mary, Rachel, where are you?” Kyle yelled from downstairs.
“Don’t come up! It’s not safe!” Mary yelled back.
“I’m up here!” the ghost girl yelled.
“Yeah, we know,” Harvey said.
“Is this the ghost’s anchor?” Rachel asked, waving the shoe at her.
Mary shook her head. “No, it’s not. Come on, let’s go downstairs before we fall down there.”
“Help me find the anchor,” Rachel said.
“Why? We want to get away from the ghost. I don’t know how long Harvey can hold her back.”
“She knows something.”
“She knows she freaked out Jenny. Come on!”
“No, I’m not going without the anchor.”
Short of dragging her out of there, Mary could see she wasn’t getting Rachel to leave without the anchor. If she destroyed it, then they could go home. She closed her eyes and concentrated.
“Mary, seriously. We need to go!” Harvey said.
She ignored him and focused on the house. She knew she could find the anchor. It was just a matter of not getting distracted. She headed to the hall. She could feel where the anchor was. It was a low hum that tickled her ears.
“Shut up! I can’t leave!”
Mary went down the hall to the last room. Rachel hadn’t made it to that one yet. She went in and approached the closet.
“What are you doing in there? That’s my room. Get out!”
“Harvey, you still got her?” Mary asked.
“Just barely. What are you going to do?”
Mary opened the closet and reached up onto the shelf above the clothes rod. She felt along the surface until her fingers grazed the anchor. She reached further to get a good grip and pulled it out. It was a dirty red knit cap with a white pom-pom on top. Inside the cap, there was something written in black marker. Mary shined her flashlight on it. It was the name Mary.
“You got to be kidding me,” she muttered.
“Did you find it?” Rachel asked from the doorway.
She held up the knit cap. “Got any scissors or matches?”
Rachel came over and took the cap. “No, let’s go.”
“Rachel, we have to destroy it. The ghost is psychotic.”
Rachel was looking inside the cap like Mary had done. “Her name’s Mary?”
“Guys?” Taryn yelled.
Mary grabbed Rachel by the arm and pulled her from the room.
“That’s mine! Give it back!”
“Fooled me. It’s got my name on it,” Mary said.
“No, it doesn’t. It has my name. My name!”
“Rach, we gotta get rid of that thing. The ghost isn’t stable.”
But Rachel wasn’t listening to her. She went down the stairs quickly. Quicker than Mary thought was safe. She disappeared around the corner before Mary could call her back.
“Harvey?” she called.
“Just go! Stop that!”
“Let me go! You’re not my daddy. You can’t tell me what to do!”
Mary followed Rachel, but slower. She was still scared the stairs were going to break. It might have something to do with the Laffoon Plantation when Carl fell and got stuck in the stairs. She had no desire to recreate that scene.
Kyle was at the bottom of the stairs waiting for her. “Hey, you okay?”
She nodded. “Where’d Rachel go?”
“She and Taryn went outside.”
Mary rushed to catch up with them. She was afraid Rachel was going to take off with the anchor.
“Rach, what is that? Just tell me.”
Taryn and Rachel were standing in the front yard. Rachel was holding the knit cap and seemed to be keeping her distance from her girlfriend. Eddie was watching, but he looked like he was ready to stop Rachel if needed.
“Rach? Are you all right?” Mary asked.
She didn’t like the way Rachel was acting. It seemed too desperate and a bit manic.
“I’m fine! But I’m not letting you destroy the anchor. She’s our only lead.”
“She isn’t a lead. She’s the culprit.”
The overgrown hedges around the house began to rustle. Dead leaves jumped and scattered around. Everyone watched the activity nervously.
“I’m outside!”
“She knows about Mr. Conjure.”
“She hasn’t said a word about Mr. Conjure.”
“She mentioned monsters.”
“She’s not well. Crazy doesn’t die.”
Rachel backed away from them, holding the anchor tightly. “I’m not letting you destroy the anchor.”
“Rach, what’s the safe word?”
Rachel’s jaw dropped. “Seriously!?”
“You’re not acting rationally. What’s the safe word?”
Rachel blew a big raspberry. That wasn’t the safe word. Everyone closed in around her. After the incident with the Shadowman, Rachel had been the one to suggest that they have a safe word. It would be a test to see if someone was possessed. If Rachel didn’t say the safe word, they were holding her down and taking away the anchor.
Rachel looked around at all of them in disbelief. “Aubergines. The safe word is aubergines. Happy?”
“Then give me the anchor.”
“No.”
“Rach, why do you want it?” Taryn asked.
“Because Mary’s just going to destroy it.”
“It’s the safest thing to do,” she said.
“Mary, tell us about the monsters.”
Mary didn’t know why Rachel kept insisting on talking to the ghost. They’d found a crazy ghost. Something had scared Jenny so badly that she’d attempted suicide. The crazy ghost was more than capable of that. Case solved.
“He likes the dark. He creeps around in the shadows just waiting to pounce. I walked on tip toes everywhere. Had to be sneaky to avoid him. He had nasty claws that were so sharp you wouldn’t feel them slice you.”
“What’s she saying?” Rachel demanded.
“She’s describing the boogeyman.”
“Or Mr. Conjure,” Rachel said.
“He doesn’t exist. Those guys at the Jester’s Trunk made him up.”
Rachel turned to Eddie. “Tell her that’s not true.”
Eddie cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Mr. Conjure’s origin has never been fully established. People began asking about him about a year ago.”
“And if we looked up the IP addresses for the posters, they’d probably all lead to the Jester’s Trunk,” Mary said.
“This is so neat! I haven’t been outside since I died.”
“No, Mr. Conjure is real. So what if he didn’t appear online until a year ago? That doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. Jenny didn’t make him up.”
“Promise not to destroy the anchor, and she’ll let you have it,” Harvey said to Mary.
“But I don’t want to promise,” Mary muttered.
“I’m outside, but I can’t go past the front yard and I can’t go back inside. What’s happening? I don’t like this.”
“Your spirit is tied to what they call an anchor. You can’t leave it. They brought your anchor out here.” Mary appreciated that Harvey answered the ghost. She didn’t want to try juggling multiple conversations at once.
“What do you expect me to do with her?” Mary asked, indicating the knit cap.
“Find out more about Mr. Conjure. He’s still after Jenny. If we don’t stop him, he’ll get her.”
Mary wanted to correct Rachel’s statements so badly. Jenny thought Mr. Conjure was still after her. She might try to commit suicide again. Mary wanted to help Jenny, but playing along about Mr. Conjure didn’t seem the way to go. It wasn’t healthy to feed into the delusion.
“If we take her home, I can watch her and talk to her more,” Harvey said.
“Take her home? That’s a terrible idea.”
“That’s perfect! We gotta find out more,” Rachel said.
“I don’t want to take a psychotic ghost home with me.”
“I’ll make sure nothing happens, and she seems to have calmed down now.”
“What are they saying?” Rachel asked.
“Harvey’s willing to help with her.”
“It’s so weird that her name’s Mary, too,” Rachel said.
“What?” Eddie asked.
Mary huffed. “Yeah. It seems we share a name. That’s partly why she went a little psycho on us.”
“Wait. We’re both Mary?”
“Yeah, that’s my name too.”
“Oooooh. Oops?”
“Oops?! Oh, you did more than oops, Miss Wanna-know-how-I-killed-myself-it-wasn’t-falling-down-the-stairs.”
“Wait, what?” Kyle asked in concern.
Mary waved off his question. She turned to Rachel. “Fine, I won’t do anything to the anchor. I’ll take Ghost Mary home and talk to her more. Okay?”
Rachel considered it a moment then nodded. She held out the knit cap to her.
“I get to leave?” the ghost asked.
“I can put you back if that’s what you want?” Mary still didn’t like the idea of taking the ghost with her.
“Mary’s house is nice. It has electricity,” Harvey said.
“Can we watch TV?”
“We only have basic cable,” Mary warned.
“It’s nice. You’ll see,” Harvey said.
“You can’t pull any of the stuff you did here. No tearing up the walls. If you do anything like that, you’re gone.”
“I don’t want to hurt you anymore. You’re Mary, too. It would be weird to hurt you. It’s like we’re sisters.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I’ll make sure nothing happens,” Harvey said.
“You’ll be more than doubling your babysitting duties,” Mary told him.
“Eh, I can handle it.”
“Maybe we should go,” Taryn suggested.
She was right. They’d been there too long. At any moment, a cop car could roll by. They were obviously trespassing, and they could get charged with breaking and entering if the cops found them.
Kyle and Mary left together. Rachel offered Eddie a ride with her and Taryn. Two people fit very comfortably in the cab of Kyle’s truck. Four people, even if two of them were incorporeal, was a tight fit. Mary put the two anchors in the middle of the bench seat. She knew better than to try snuggling up with Kyle with Harvey right there.
When they got to her house, Kyle put the truck in park. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
On the drive home, Ghost Mary had commented on all the changes she noticed and Harvey responded to most of her comments. From what the ghost said, Mary put her death at about twenty years ago. She wondered what she could find online about what had happened.
Had Ghost Mary pushed Jenny to suicide? The parallels were obvious. Both claimed to be plagued by monsters. Both had attempted suicide. But once Jenny had left 488 Norris Street, Ghost Mary’s influence should have waned. Maybe Jenny was just too suggestible, and once the seed had been planted, it had taken root.
Mary wasn’t susceptible to Ghost Mary’s influence. She could hear the ghost’s words loud and clear. They weren’t sub-audible suggestions that seemed like internal thoughts. She wasn’t about to take a bunch of pills or hang herself. Suicide wasn’t the answer for anything. And with Mary’s ability, she knew that death wasn’t a release, anyway. She had sort of wondered what would happen to her when she died, but she didn’t really like to think about it. She wondered if she’d become a ghost or not. She hoped not. These thoughts about mortality, though, were very morbid, and usually, her thoughts would drift unwillingly to Gran, and she balked hard at thinking about Gran’s passing. She refused to contemplate it. If Gran passed. She refused to think of it as when it would happen. Her world would tilt so hard if Gran passed. Everything would crumble and fall into a pit with Mary at the bottom, and she wasn’t sure if she’d be strong enough to climb out or if she’d want to.
Ghost Mary, though, was making her think about these things. The parallels were too obvious to ignore. Ghost Mary had seen monsters that no one else saw. Mary heard voices no one else heard. Ghost Mary had committed suicide. It wasn’t a big step to imagine herself doing the same. She’d had dark thoughts in the past. She’d hated her ability and considered it a curse. The only person who’d kept her from spiraling down was Gran, and she wasn’t home right now. It would be easy to start sliding and no one would catch her. Mary hated herself for having these thoughts. It put a chill down her spine.
