skies had turned gray and drizzle was in the forecast. “Do we just go in with smudge sticks blazing, or should we do a salt circle and call in a goddess?”
Hope, who was dressed similarly in jeans and a sweatshirt, gazed at the cottage with her eyes squinted. She had the most experience with cleansing spaces and had offered to help Grace see what they could do. “It depends on how entrenched the spirit is in the fabric of the house. Can we go in first so I can get a feel for things?”
“Sure.” Grace handed her a sachet of cloves. “Put this on.”
Hope did so without comment and handed Grace a sage stick. “I got these at that place up north run by the Wiccan elder. They’re supposed to be more powerful than the average sage bundles we get around here.”
“They’re worth a try.”
“Let’s do this.” Hope strode up to the house, and without hesitation, she barged right in.
Grace followed closely behind her, and the moment she stepped over the threshold, icy cold air pricked her skin as if it were tiny little ice needles. “Ouch!” she complained and dropped the sage bundle as she pressed her hands to her cheeks to soothe the ache. She glanced at Hope, who was standing in the middle of the empty room looking contemplative. “Didn’t you feel that?”
“Yep. I’m ignoring it.” She closed her eyes and started to spin in a very slow circle.
Grace wanted to run back out of the house and demand that the owner find a professional but then realized that she was the professional. If she, a witch, couldn’t figure out how to deal with the spirits taking over the house, who could? Ghost hunters? The ones she knew were just data collectors. They didn’t do anything but smudge buildings and politely ask spirits to leave. That worked fine most of the time. But some spirits refused to leave, and if they were nefarious, that’s when everything went to hell.
Hope started to shimmer with magic.
As soon as the golden light appeared, the house groaned, making the hair stand up on Grace’s arms. A shiver ran through her, but she steeled her spine and got to work. She pulled out her camera and started to methodically take pictures of each area of the room.
“That’s really strange,” Hope said.
Grace continued to take pictures as she asked, “What’s strange?”
“As soon as you started to take photographs, the spirits vanished.”
“What do you mean, vanished?” She lowered the camera and turned to look at her friend. “Are you saying they’re camera shy?”
Hope nodded, her dark curls bouncing around her pink cheeks. “They don’t want us to know who they are.”
Grace blinked at her. “How do you know that?”
“Just a guess.” She dropped the canvas bag she’d been carrying and said, “Let’s do this. Maybe now that they have left, we can make it so uncomfortable that they don’t want to come back.”
“If you say so.” Grace walked over to one of the windows that faced the ocean and opened it wide. The thick fog immediately started to seep in through the window. It was both amazing and creepy as all get out. Grace had lived in the small seaside town for over twenty years, and she was still awed by mother nature’s natural wonders. “I’m not sure anyone can get out through this stuff.”
Hope chuckled. “They can if they want to badly enough.”
Grace rejoined her friend, grabbed her sage stick, and held it up with Hope’s. Together they conjured a flame to light them both at the same time and chanted, “Purify this home by the sea. Release the ghosts, let them be free. Break the chains that bind, so that the tethers to this place unwind.”
Grace broke away from Hope, waving the sage smoke in the air. She had to admit that the house felt much more at peace than it had the day she’d toured it. Could it really have been that easy? Take a few pictures to scare them off and then sage the place? If it was, whomever Mr. Saint had hired must have been the most incompetent—
BOOM!
Grace jerked so hard she stumbled backward into a fireplace mantle, cracking her elbow against the wood. “Ouch. Son of a chicken!”
Hope took off running up the stairs, and with unshed tears stinging Grace’s eyes, she followed closely on her heels. Whatever had happened wasn’t good, and Grace was likely to be held responsible. A pit formed in the depths of her