and when she raised her head, she was merely human once again.
“What was so special about that skull that it got a visit from… him?” I hesitated to say the Baron’s name. When dealing with insanely powerful otherworldly spirits, it’s best not to invoke them unless you’re prepared for a visit.
Lucinda placed the beaded skull back in its box. “Someone had misused their magic to make this abomination,” she replied, and from the anger in her tone, I knew she wasn’t critiquing the artwork. “It’s a human skull, and a human soul was trapped inside. The beadwork was done in a way that secured the spells. And if that wasn’t bad enough, something was draining that captive soul.”
“That’s the second time in as many days we’ve run into something feeding on souls.”
Lucinda fixed me with a worried look. “Child, that is not good. Does Sorren know?”
I nodded. “And he isn’t sure what’s behind it. Which worries me.”
“Is it all right with you if I keep the skull?”
“Yeah. We bought it for you, to keep it from going astray,” I replied.
“Good call. Even now, I wouldn’t want someone with bad intent to get a hold of it,” she said, and glanced over her shoulder toward where the workers sounded as if they were finishing their assignment. “Look, I need to get the exhibition up and running, so I’ve got to go, but if you need me, call me,” she added. And with that, Lucinda headed back to the other room, picking up where she had left off.
I headed back to Trifles and Folly, glad to be free of the beaded skull. My tote felt lighter without it, and I felt a psychic burden lift as well. Then I remembered that we still had not freed Tad’s spirit from the hair necklace, and I hoped that Father Anne would be able to send him on his way. Although Tad seemed resigned to being adrift in the world of the living, I had no desire to see him become a casualty in what was looking like it would be a nasty fight. And while Tad was already dead, I had seen enough to know that there were fates much worse than lack of a pulse.
I was deep in thought, and stumbled over the Ghost Bike. The mangled bike had been painted white as a memorial to a fallen cyclist and chained to a light post close to the scene of the accident. The newspaper had dubbed such memorials ‘Ghost Bikes’, and they had been popping up all over town in the last several months. They reminded me of the roadside shrines grieving families put up by the side of the highway to commemorate the site of a fatal wreck. And just like with the homemade shrines, I felt a jolt of otherworldly energy as my leg brushed the bike’s painted tire.
“Yikes!” I yelped, less because I had nearly fallen than because I was unprepared for the vision that came with the physical contact.
A bump beneath the front wheel, the blare of a car horn, too close and coming up too fast. Frantically struggling to regain control, then falling and impact… and then, something evil in the darkness, hungry and relentless. In the next instant, I saw the darkness overwhelm the cyclist’s hapless ghost, consuming his flickering light until nothing remained.
“Hey lady, are you all right?” A man in the coveralls of a local lawn service peered at me with concern. I realized I was steadying myself against the lamp post, trying to catch my breath.
“I’m fine,” I said sheepishly. “I stumbled and almost fell – must have caught my toe on something.”
“You might want to sit down. You’re pale as a ghost.”
Not quite, I thought. “Thanks. I just needed to catch my breath.” The man went on his way, and I took another moment to steady myself. I glanced back at the Ghost Bike, and saw a small laminated card with the name of the dead cyclist and the date of the fatal accident, along with a short description of what had happened. And while I knew that the bikes that were painted and used for the memorials weren’t always the actual bikes from the accidents, I wondered if the people creating the shrines realized that at least in some cases, spirits that did not move on attached themselves to the bikes.
When I got back to the shop, I found a sign on the door that said ‘Back in fifteen minutes’ and the