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  “How am I going to focus on school?” J said.

  Though Max and Sandra both knew it would be hard, J’s day would be better spent filled with an education. After dropping the boy off, Sandra planned to follow up on her mysterious idea of what the spell Brown used actually would do. Which left Max alone in the house. Alone with nothing to occupy his mind.

  Except he had one more job — call his mother. She needed to know that PB would not be coming in, but he could not tell her the reason. He settled on the simplest explanation — PB was sick. Normally, Max would not dare use such a lame excuse, especially because his mother would insist on coming over to nurse the poor boy, but he had no such fears this time. Mrs. Porter would not break her self-imposed exile. Not yet. She would think it served Max and Sandra right that they had to take care of a sick child without her knowledgeable help.

  The call went about as well as Max could have expected. She kept the conversation short — thankfully — but still managed to throw in a few backhanded compliments and passive-aggressive comments. With that task completed, Max returned to having nothing to do but wait.

  About an hour later, Drummond slipped through the walls into the living room. “I know that look. You’re not having very good thoughts.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Going through the same thing as you. Killing time. Waiting for this ceremony is like sitting through a long stakeout but taking out all the fun of actually having something to watch.”

  Max stretched his arms. “You got that right.”

  Hovering over the chair opposite Max, Drummond pushed back his hat and puffed his cheeks as he gazed around the room. “Small place like this gets awfully depressing when it’s empty.”

  “And here I was worried you were going to try and cheer me up.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t realize you needed cheering. What’s the matter? Besides the obvious.”

  Max’s chest felt the weight of all his thoughts. He had spent so many hours contemplating the very thing Drummond wanted to discuss. Max wanted to discuss it, too. But at the same time, the thought of putting into words the ideas spinning tornadoes in his head exhausted him as much as the act of talking about it.

  Drummond said, “You just going to sit there? We’ve got a lot of hours to get through before the ceremony. You might as well say something.”

  “Okay, okay, enough. I’ll talk if it will stop you from rambling.”

  “No pressure. If you want to talk, that’s fine.”

  Max was tempted to give Drummond a taste of Sandra’s hand on the hip routine but now that he stood on the edge of speaking his mind, he could feel the words bubbling up his throat.

  “Do you think I’m being selfish? I mean it. All of this that we’re going through is to get PB away from his father. It’s all to bring him back to this family, so I can play at the role of father. But that’s for me. Doesn’t PB have a right to be with his actual father? Especially when the result is going to be great wealth for him. Why shouldn’t that boy enjoy money for a change?”

  “For starters, it’s blood money.” Drummond drifted into the center of the room as he spoke. “But the actual problem is that you’re looking at everything wrong. PB doesn’t need his real father. Nobody gives a crap who slept with who to create who. What PB needs — what he wants deep inside — is a true father. That’s what any kid wants.”

  “A true father?”

  “Knock off that skeptical tone. I know what I’m talking about. My father wasn’t around. I know exactly what I needed. A true father — somebody I could count on. Somebody who when he says I’ll be there to pick you up at twelve, you know what happens at twelve? He’s there. Somebody who’s going to teach all the stupid stuff — how to throw a ball, how to mow a lawn, how to tie a tie. But also somebody who’s going to show you how to treat another right. Teach that love and sex aren’t the same thing. There’s a reason people want to fall in love and spend their lives with one person, and it has nothing to do with how gorgeous the person looks or how hot they get your blood boiling. Whether we want to admit it or not, we all want a father who will set down the law when it needs to be set down. Somebody who’s not afraid to show us when we’re wrong as well as praise us when we’re right.”

  Max watched Drummond and could not find the words to respond. Not only was the ghost correct, but he scared Max with his openness. If ever Max needed to know what dumbfounded felt like, he had experienced it right then.

  “Why’re we talking about this?” Drummond said, floating over to look out the window. With his back to Max, he continued, “We should focus on contingencies. You and I both know nothing will go the way we plan. Never does. We need some back up ideas.”

  Welcoming the change of subject, Max said, “Sandra’s working on finding out what the spell is. That should give us some direction to go in for our counter-moves.”

  “That’ll help. But I’m not sure it’ll be enough.”

  Max scooted to the edge of the couch. “You got something in mind?”

  “I don’t know if it’s time.” Drummond turned back to face Max. “But I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this. The way you reacted at the restaurant, the all-nighter you pulled, the risks you’re taking — you’ve done a lot of it before but there’s a desperate passion in the way you’ve been acting.” He leaned close enough that Max could feel the cold coming off of him. “If we botch this up, we’ll never see that boy again.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re trying to instill me with confidence or scare the hell out of me.”

  Backing up, Drummond readjusted his hat. “He told me that I’d know when the time came, and I’m calling it — now is the time. Get in your car. We’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of us.”

  “What? Who told you?”

  “I’ll explain on the way.”

  “Explain what? Where are we going?”

  “To dig up some treasure.”

  Chapter 25

  MAX BROUGHT UP A MAP ON HIS PHONE, and Drummond guided him to a point far south near the town of Mocksville. The map made it clear — there was nothing out there but acres of woods. Drummond insisted he remembered the location correctly, and so Max drove on. At worst, the long trip would eat up many hours of the day.

  “In the years before I died,” Drummond said, “after I left the police department, I had my own little team who would help me with my cases. Especially those involving ghosts and witchcraft. I never was a researcher like you.”

  “Shocker.”

  “I had an old friend named Leroy Parker. He was a colored fellow — sorry, black fellow — and he lived in a small shack of a house out in the middle of the woods we’re heading towards. He was a cantankerous old bastard but smart as a whip. Had quite a collection of books on witchcraft. Sandra would’ve been envious. Whenever I came upon the kinds of things that send you and your wife into researching, I relied on him.”

  As Max headed on Route 64 and crossed the Yadkin River, he started to think that perhaps he should have stayed home. Traipsing through the woods to find the remains of a house belonging to a man obsessed with witchcraft did not sound like a smart idea. Then again, considering the world Max lived in, he had to ask, “This Leroy Parker — he’s not still alive, is he?”

  “Died a long time ago. Moved on, too.”

  “So what are we going out there to find?”

  Drummond turned his head away from Max and stared out the window. “Last case I ever had with Leroy, I think he knew he would be dying soon. He told me that he had buried a trunk near his house — right outside his chimney. Said that I should never dig it up unless everything is falling apart and I had no other option.”

  “I know things are bad, but they’re not that bad.”

  “He also told me that there may come a day when I see that I don’t ever need what’s in that trunk, that I want to give it to somebody else. He said I’d know when the time was right. That’s why we’re going out today. That’s why I’m giv
ing this trunk to you.”

  “Hold on a second. With all we’ve been through, you’ve never once thought we might need it before now?”

  “He said not unless I had no other option. There always was another option. Maybe I’m wrong about now, maybe we have a better way out, but I hate to see that kid get caught up in everything. I want to make sure he’s got every chance to get through this.”

  “Okay — so what’s in the trunk?”

  Drummond shrugged. “Leroy never told me. But you better believe it’s going to be powerful.”

  The further away from Winston-Salem they traveled, the thicker the trees grew. All around them became forest. Occasional areas had been cut clear for housing but long swaths were darkened in the shadows of trees. Max’s nerves felt the darkening as well.

  Drummond sighed as they crossed an intersection with an ancient gas station on one side and an empty lot on the other. “This area was all forest back when I was alive. Look at it now. I don’t know which is scarier — the dark woods or the unending sprawl.”

  “The dark woods,” Max said as they re-entered a tree-filled section. “Definitely, the dark woods.”

  A short time later, Drummond pointed to the side of the road. “Up there.”

  Max slowed and pulled over onto the grass. He parked the car before a dirt path that led into the woods.

  “Is that a road?” he asked.

  “Leroy valued his privacy more than anything. Back in my day, you could attempt to get a Packard or a Plymouth U up that narrow path, and as long as it didn’t rain and turn everything to mud, you might even succeed. But I learned fast, it was better to park out here and hoof it in.”

  Max turned off the car. From the backseat, he grabbed a shovel and an empty duffel bag. “Then I guess I’m hoofing it.”

  Hiking through the woods brought to mind all the fairytales about the dangers found deep in the forest. This wasn’t the first time Max had followed Drummond into a darkened wood. It probably wouldn’t be the last. But even with daylight poking through the leaves and dappling the ground with spots of warmth, even then, Max felt an eerie chill enveloping him. Most humans had left the woods a long time ago because, like the dark itself, the trees created an unknown, mysterious, and unseen otherness.

  A few feet ahead, Drummond floated through the trees as he led the way. Over his shoulder, he said, “Don’t stray. A lot of bad things have happened out here.”

  “Great. That makes me feel better.”

  Off to the left, dry leaves rustled and dead branches snapped as some animal skittered away. The wind picked up for a moment, swishing through the tree branches, to create a sound like rain. The only thing missing was the mournful howl of a lone wolf.

  When they reached the house — what remained of it — Drummond stopped several feet from what would have been the front door. Charred wood no more than ankle-high formed a small rectangle that outlined where the dwelling had once stood. The brick chimney had endured, though the top had crumbled down over the years leaving a reddish ruin about nine feet high.

  It had been eighty years since Drummond last saw the place, and Max could tell the experience hurt. An oak tree had grown near the middle of the house, and with so many decades passing undisturbed, it reached high up with a thick, sturdy trunk.

  “Well look at that,” Drummond said. But he was not remarking on the tree. He pointed to the left of the oak where Max spotted half of a bookshelf leaning precariously to the side. Only three rusted coffee cans kept the thing standing. Only two books remained on its shelves.

  “Can we go in?” Max asked. Not that there was a real inside — just a hint of dark lines in the ground where walls once had been.

  Drummond nodded. “Be careful what you touch, though.”

  While Max could have walked straight to the bookshelf, he approached through the front door area. Walking around the oak, he noticed three wards carved into the brick of the chimney. One he recognized as a simple warning against magic. The other two he did not know, but clearly they were not ghost wards as Drummond followed behind with ease.

  Rubble on the ground, bits of old shattered glass, shards of wood — it formed a floor, of sorts, that crunched and crackled under every step. Covered in dust, the bookshelf looked so fragile that Max feared moving either book. No need, it turned out — the first was a history of the Underground Railroad in North Carolina and the second was a book of spells for influencing animals. However, even from his limited angle, Max could see that all of the pages were missing.

  He scanned the tattered floor. “I thought you said Leroy Parker collected all kinds of witchcraft books. Where are they?”

  “Probably sitting on the shelves of many of the witches we know. The moment he died, I have no doubt that individual witches and maybe even a coven trekked down this way to scavenge what they could. That’s why Leroy buried the treasure he wanted me to have. He knew anything left in the open was going to be taken.” Drummond made a circle of the perimeter, his face always gazing outward. “You better get digging.”

  Max paused. “You see something?”

  “I see more than one something. Hurry up.”

  Armed with his shovel, Max jogged over to the dilapidated chimney. “Where in front of the chimney should I dig exactly?”

  As Drummond came around again, he pointed to a specific spot in the dirt. “Whatever’s down there, I can see it glowing.”

  “Either Leroy put a spell around it —”

  “Or it’s magic. But we won’t ever find out if you keep talking instead of working.”

  Max got digging. He did not like the nerves in Drummond’s voice. Every time the wind blew through the trees and his skin chilled, he thought that certainly this would be an attack by a ghost. But the attack did not come. Whatever haunted these woods, whatever put Drummond on edge, it had yet to make its move. Max continued digging.

  The dense Carolina clay made the work difficult and slow. In only a few minutes, sweat drenched Max’s shirt. Thankfully, Leroy Parker buried the trunk when he was an old man — he had not wanted to dig too deep, either.

  Max hit the top of the trunk within ten minutes and proceeded to widen the hole over the next ten. Sweaty and aching, he managed to get around the edges enough to find the latch.

  The trunk looked like an old army issue — flat top, olive green, big enough to fit a man’s gear and little else. Using the blade of the shovel, Max smashed open the latch — buried for eighty years, it more or less disintegrated upon impact.

  Drummond flew up behind. “Open it up, grab what’s inside, let’s get out of here.”

  Half-expecting a blinding magical light to shine forth, Max gently lifted the lid. Inside, the trunk was nearly empty. All except for a single small book. It fit in the palm of his hand and reminded Max of a child’s practice notebook — a plaything that did not meet any practical purpose.

  But when he opened the book he found each of the small pages held a single hand-drawn symbol. The author of these designs wrote in calligraphy. Each page bore one symbol — nothing more. No explanations.

  “Come on,” Drummond said.

  “Just a second.”

  “When I told you a lot of bad things happened here, perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. A lot of bad things happened here because of me. These woods are filled with some mighty angry ghosts, and that anger is directed towards two people — Leroy Parker who’s moved on and me. Can we please get going?”

  Clasping the book in his right hand, Max stood. “Sorry.”

  As they headed away from the house, Drummond stopped and turned around. “That’s not good.”

  Max could feel the chill on his back, and this time, he knew it was no simple breeze against his sweat. He heard an animalistic grunt, and he had the strange thought that perhaps a bear had followed them. But when he turned around, he saw a bear of a man hulking forward. Muscular and bald, a crude binding spell had been carved across his forehead. The man glowed with the same pale ghostly li
ght as Drummond.

  Max stumbled back and fell to the ground. He only ever saw Drummond. How could he be seeing another ghost?

  Chapter 26

  SHARP PEBBLES CUT INTO MAX’S HANDS as he stared up at this monstrous ghost. Drummond lunged forward, throwing a right cross against the man’s jaw. He followed with a left, but the man caught Drummond’s arm and whipped him around. Max watched the pale figures tussle, his mind locked upon a single thought — how can I see this other ghost?

  Perhaps it was some residual effect from all the time he had spent cursed by Mother Hope. Perhaps one of the wards on Leroy Parker’s chimney forced a ghost to be visible in the surrounding area. Or perhaps his ability to see Drummond had begun to grow. All of those answers seemed possible yet none of them felt right.

  The man popped Drummond twice in the gut, but Drummond countered with an uppercut that caught the man off-guard. “Now look McMurtry, we’ve both been dead a long time. There’s no need to keep holding this grudge.”

  McMurtry charged forward angry as a bull. “You cursed me.”

  “You were killing people.”

  “It was the witch’s fault. She made me.”

  “What can I say? You shouldn’t play with witches. You end up cursed.”

  They traded blows. Drummond appeared to have things well in hand — he took a couple of hard hits, yet Max had seen him fight many times before. He could handle McMurtry. But then Max noticed the pale glows in the distance.

  Rushing to his feet, he said, “We’ve got more company.”

  Drummond shoved McMurtry hard and managed a quick look through the trees. He peeked back, and his face told Max everything.

  “More of your old friends?” Max said.

  Returning his focus to McMurtry, Drummond said, “Get into Leroy’s house. He was a paranoid old man. Kept salt everywhere.”