Pink Moon, Waxing Gibbous: Ophelia

“I swear, Nem, if we die-”

“They’re fine, Ophelia, I promise. We just need them to throw us a bone and we’ll be out in no time. Statistically speaking, you’re risking less here in this shrubby place where the dead are supposed to rest. Any random house has a higher risk-benefit haunting rate than a graveyard.”

“He’s right. It’s the restless ones you have to look out for.”

Looking out for ghosts was going to be difficult for Mel, since she couldn’t see what I saw across the lawn. As we passed swollen trees, skirted a glowing green lake oozing with pitiful swans and came up to the mortuary gates, my stomach felt like I was teetering at the highest point of a very rickety roller coaster, ready to plummet. This could be fine. It could be like that ride at Disneyland, where all the ghosts come out to sing and sweep across the grass and disembodied heads coo at pale, intruding mortals holding their lanterns aloft…

Instead, I saw rocking chairs.

“That’s it!? I cried, arms folded against the chill. “No unearthed nightmares? No hands coming out of the ground to snatch our ankles? No singing!?”

“If you want singing, you should drop by on Sundays,” hollered an elderly woman who sat, gently rocking a few inches above her plot with a baby in her arms and a knitted blanket draped across her legs. “Oh, you must be Ophelia. I’ve heard so much about you. Do come visit. And shoo, the rest of you. Give me some space to talk to my grandson. ”

Several ghosts who had been chatting near their plots suddenly materialized and obliged, moving their conversation to a squat, knobby mulberry tree. Mel seemed to be having the time of her life gathering the dark red fruit. Supposedly the berries give artists special inspiration on long summer nights spent alone with their work... I couldn’t tell if that had anything to do with the graveyard’s magic ability or whether she just liked drinking the stuff, but I wasn’t comfortable putting anything remotely connected to dead people in my mouth.

I shuddered, realizing we were asking to do just that.

“Grandma, we have a favor to ask- it’s a spell we need, and it’s really important because it will help us solve the mystery I told you about, the trouble with the portals,” Nem stuttered, running his hands through his hair. 

“That depends, dear. I won’t have you digging up Old Man Kingsley or me or anyone else for that matter- this graveyard isn’t a Walmart, Nehemiah!”

“...It doesn’t have to be bones,” I interrupted, somewhat softly. “It could be a lock of hair, or an item that meant a lot to the person. Those would probably open up a portal strong enough for one of us to pass through-”

“Objection,” Mel cut in, her uni sweatshirt full of berries. She popped one in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Bones are the strongest vector , and even then the spell might not work, especially if the person doesn’t want us to use their remains. Hair… that’s hard to find, and it isn’t safe. Ask her if she’s got a wedding ring, or maybe a locket? Something worn every day, imbued with energy, you know? That might give us a few hours, maybe even a day.”

Nem’s hand flew to his heart, and I noticed a chain peeking out of his sweater. He locked eyes with his grandma and chewed his bottom lip. “You think grandpa would...”

“Not my wedding ring, and definitely not my scrapbooks. What about the sapphires?” She indicated her ghostly earrings and bounced the ghostly child on her knee. The baby blew raspberries into the damp air, and grandma nodded decisively. “They’re vintage!”

“You know as well as I do that I haven’t seen them in ages,” Nem muttered, looking up at me sharply realizing his mistake. “I mean, we’ll have to look for them.”

“Thank you Mrs. Lark,” I smiled, turning to the other two and tugging on Nem’s wrist. “This is rather urgent, so if you have any other leads we’d appreciate that as well.”

Nem’s grandma snapped her fingers and tugged the baby- who had begun to float absentmindedly- back into her lap. “Of course! Kingsley’s place! You must see him right away!”

“Anyone but Kingsley,” Nem moaned, but I was already pulling him away from the plot in the direction Mrs. Lark had nodded. “Thank you Grandma,” I called, and I thought I glimpsed a smile creep across the old woman’s face.

⛬  ⛬  ⛬

“Her locket,” I whispered to Nem as we made our way over to the historical section of the graveyard with its raised granite and crumbling limestone. “You have her locket. And I bet I know what’s in it, considering your family’s a line of slayers.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’ve got the piece that she wore everyday, and inside it, a lock of hair, a finger bone, something. You had to have known to retrieve something like that before the funeral, so she can get out of here. So you can share your life with her.”

“Mind your own business.”

“I’m not asking that we use it to open the portal.”

“Great. And you won’t.”

“...But that’s sweet.”

Nem screwed up his face and looked at me like I had said something terribly perplexing, but then Mel caught up with us and I swear she looked  a little shaken. “What are we doing with the Tombies?” she asked, turning to Nem.

“Old Kingsley was the sort of fellow whose family had tons of cash, but you never would have guessed it the way his place looked. It’s abandoned now- no one wanted to sort through his hordes of junk. If the stories are true, there’s a collection of hair, teeth and who-knows-what under the foundation of that house, he’s probably our best bet for bones but… naturally, his family gave him the best of the best. He’s in the raised section, the historical plots, and the sort of ghosts you find there, well…”

“Intruders!” I heard a limestone marker rumble not that far off.

“Oi, trousers!? On young ladies such as yourselves!”

“Goodness, I can even see your ankles. Clothe yourself, young lady- look at me when I speak to you!”

“I crave a boooooon ...”

“I thought you said these ghosts are safe...” I shuddered, apprehensive once more

“Oh they’re safe,” Nem said, eyes lolling. 

“They’re annoying as hell.”

Pink Moon, Waxing Gibbous: Mel

 Kingsley’s house is a no-go. 

We find everything from pencil stubs to disassembled clocks and hosiery, gum wads and wet newspapers where the roof leaked amber sludge on the floor, but we couldn’t tell who these items belonged to or whether they could help us open a portal through the ether. That, and we had to wedge the backdoor open with the back of a hammer. 

Major karma, like break a mirror at 3:00 am karma. Death wish karma.

“He seemed chipper for a Tombie,” I muse, sorting through a stack of books and rusty spoons. Seriously, did this guy die of tetanus? “If I were a curmudgeonly old man, where would I bury my teeth? Are we looking for a mason jar, or like, My Strange Addiction?” I mutter, inspecting a photo of what I assume must be a younger Kingsley- all dressed up in a suit, his hands resting on the shoulders of an unfamiliar blonde lady in lavender chiffon.

Oh no. 

Sure enough, I spin around to find a blonde, pale figure in rose overalls, hair tumbling down the front of her work clothes. She sports a smattering of paintbrushes still ripe with color in the front pockets, and stares at us quizzically.  I’m struck dumb by the fact that I can see her. The mullberries, I think, heart singing at this potential discovery. But I toss this thought aside and narrow my eyes at the girl.

“Hello,” she says, brows furrowing as she takes the three of us in. “Can I … help you?” 

I gulp in an apprehensive breath. Different sorts of ghosts- the ones who chase you out of their home or the poltergeists caught in violent loops that bring unsuspecting visitors to their death- often begin their haunts as gentle, unassuming spectres. Appearances betray the true nature of the beholder. But this girl hardly looks like a ghost at all, with flecks of paint caught in her light hair and her head cocked to one side as she tries to figure out who we are, and why we’re here.

“He sent you?” she says, voice lilting. 

Nem lights up at once.

“Of course,” he murmurs, hand scratching the scruff at his neck. “You must be Nadia.”

And okay, I am completely lost on this because not only did Nem just give us a huge advantage over the spectre what with giving us her name,  and he’s nodding like this all makes sense, which it doesn’t. He turns to me with what I can only guess is bad news.

“His ward. She’s not a spook.” He grimaces. “She needs to go home.”

“Can you give us a little more background, please?” Ophelia grits her teeth and calls out behind us.

Nem seems not to hear, and instead turns back to the … girl? Woman? It’s difficult to tell when you pass through the realms. As in, Cutesy Overalls could be seventeen or two thousand years old, if she’s magik. Or she could just be some pale recluse who damn near frightens visitors to death.

“Nymphs need more than a swimming pool to survive that long...” Nem cautions, clutching at something beneath his neckline.

“So that was why kingsley wanted us to come here. He doesn’t keep anything useful around, huh? No teeth? No magik items?”

“If I had a mirror to get back to where I’m from, I would have used it by now,” Nadia lisps, and I notice that her bare feet are webbed.

She’s a water nymph, I realize at once, tragically underwhelmed because the mullberries are not, in fact, magik.  It’s bad enough we can’t open a portal- now I have to deal with another pitfall of being human? I want to see myself a ghost, people!

 Suddenly I have an idea. 

“We crave a boon,” I say sharply, and everyone turns to face me. 

“We get you through the ether to whichever dimension you're from, and you find us a way to get there too. You must know a way. A mirror? Elvish toadstools? That’s why we came; we’re running out of ways to get there. We can’t wait until the full moon, or loads of people will die. And we can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to get back once we travel to another realm. Ophelia can sometimes get to Yggdrasyll or The Woods in her dreams, but those are unreliable. We don’t know why, but Nem’s portals won’t work until the Pink Moon. And I need bones. Or hair. Important items. Something. 

“We need to look for the earrings...” Nem trails off, scratching his head. But I know they’re a lost cause. As he turns to leave, Nadia’s stance widens. 

“Don’t leave me here,” the nymph shrieks, balling her fists- and oh no, this is worse than any ghost’s wrath.

All the faucets in the house turn on, full blast. 

We can just leave out the way we came, can’t we? But as I’m dragging Ophelia by the elbow towards the door, a torrent of water bursts from the water heater closet, sizzling as it hits the wood paneling. Woah, okay, not that way then. But the back windows face the pool, which I don’t trust either.

Water trickles down from upstairs, and I hear Ophelia shriek something to Nem. 

I climb atop the chest of drawers and begin reciting every hex I know.

Pink Moon, Waxing Gibbous: Nem

Gram, why are so many of your friends psychopaths?

I’m grippin’ the locket, tryna figure out if I can take the lock of hair stored within out so that I can shut this annoying nymph up long enough for us to get out and hightail it to the attic.

It’s like, I know what Gram said about helping strangers, but I also kinda wanna live- that’s sorta necessary to continue this do-unto-others deal we’ve got going for us. On the other hand, all this work to stop Armageddon is exhausting, and I would be down with being let off the hook. If that didn’t  mean, well, being let off the end of … us. 

So I do what any loser would do, I chuck the locket at Nadia because my friends would be pissed if they died. 

The things I do for love.

At once, the water sinks, pulled down into the walls and wood planks, and I hear Mel cursing- vita ad mortem, adveniente finis ad terram diaboli- and Nadia is just tickled pink as she clutches the necklace, and I’m gripping Gram’s hair in my fist because I’d be damned before she gets those. Nadia wrinkles her brows, and Mel looks up, starting.

“You eat it,” I say, grimacing.

“And-?”

“And you’ll go back to the Woods”

“But…” And without further hesitation, Nadia balls the heart and chain into her fist and swallows the golden locket in one gulp, vanishing before us. 

⛬  ⛬  ⛬

“So it worked?” mutters Ophelia, more to herself than to us. “Great, what do we do now?”

“You know this chick better than either of us,” Mel sneers, spinning me around. “What next? Does she keep her promises, or does she frolic in Wonderland, leaving Earth to die in her happily ever after? That was our shot, Nem! We blew it! Next time, tell us you have a solution before leading us into a death trap!”

And for once, I have nothing witty to snap back. What do we do now? Do I give up my connection to Gram- swallow her eyes and ears and leave her confined to the grave? I’m sure she’d understand. We shouldn’t even be allowed this connection, but still. Her freedom, for a portal. And a weak, temporary one at that. With so much uncertainty, I can’t bring myself to do it, end of the world or not. 

“Guys?” Ophelia calls warily from the backyard, motioning us towards the pool.

I skulk over to the side of the swimming pool, which must have served as Nadia’s prison all these years.

How long was she here, and why? Kingsley wasn’t a freak- she had been his ward, I knew that much. I had seen her as a boy growing up under his care when Gram and I visited.

Gram always asked her questions, said that she was special, and far from home. I guess I assumed she spent all her time studying, and that she’d gone off to some great college. Now I wonder why she was trapped in the mortal realm, and how she could harbor so much ill will. 

I stare into the swimming pool, greenish water refracting light in all directions. But there’s one gleaming object at the grimy bottom that almost blinds me as I shift to get a closer look.

 At the bottom lies a simple, compact mirror. 

Finally some good luck.