Spirit Caller 01 - Spirits Rising

a month, so I needed to dig out the potatoes soon. When I’d first moved to Wisemen’s Cove, I thought it strange that people didn’t garden on their property. That was before I realized how pervasive the wind was. Inland, behind the tree barrier, was the way to go.
    As I approached St. Anthony—pronounced Sant’ney by the locals—the dense presence of something other hung in the air of the centuries-old fishing town and pressed against me. It wasn’t that way at Mrs. Saunders’s, but, as soon as I pulled away from view of her two-story, royal-blue house, the other grew thicker like the morning fog that often blanketed the area.
    I tried justifying it away. It was my first day back, after all, and my senses probably hadn’t adjusted to the . . .
    I sighed. My intuition said Manny’s house crashers were a part of the supernatural that unsettled the air. I was humble enough to listen to my intuition’s wisdom. It was never wrong, unlike me. It said something was up, so I’d listen. I pushed aside the mounting unease in my soul.
    I refuse to let spirits dictate my emotions and sense of peace. A girl’s gotta have standards.
    Being a bad example for driving and talking, it being illegal and all, I flipped open my cell. I took a deep breath, steadied my voice, and went for nonchalant. “Hey, Jeremy.”
    “Hey, Rachel,” came the voice from the other end, muffled by chewing, “How long you been back?”
    I sucked in a breath. Jeremy was the reason I went to Mexico for a month. Casual, Rachel. He’s taken. Go for casual. “I just got back. Listen, David O’Toole’s kid is in some kind of trouble. Can you meet me at his house?”
    He snorted. “Bit uneasy going to David’s, huh?” He slurped his drink empty, though I could detect the faint snicker in his voice. “My shift just ended. I don’t mind.”
    I nodded, even though I was on the phone, keeping things serious. “The kid’s in some sort of trouble and with David away—”
    “It’s no problem, Rachel,” Jeremy said, cutting me off. “I’m at the Kozy Korner, so it’ll only take me a couple minutes to drive there. I’ll meet you.”
    “Thanks.” I hung up. Okay, that went all right. I blew out the lungful of air I held. See, Mom? I can be a grown up.
    A few minutes later, I pulled into Manny’s driveway, gravel crunching under my tires. Chills pricked my spine and whispers enveloped me. My heart pounded and the hairs on my arms stood on end. Movies and books always present the paranormal as spooky because, frankly, it is. Even to folks sensitive to it.
    Especially to us sensitive types. Three calming breaths and a few words in Cree I’d learned from my grandmother surrounded me in an insulating blanket that buffered the spiritual unrest from Manny’s house. I stepped out of my car, slowly, cell phone in hand, adjusting my own soul to the voices in the evening air until they did not claw at my spiritual insides.
    The September wind pulled at my jacket, cutting through my jeans, and it muffled the sounds around the O’Toole house. Manny’s home was just off the town’s main drag, an average, fifty- or sixty-year-old house, a two-story building painted bright pink. A Newfoundlander’s house wasn’t a proper house if it was painted plain ol’ beige. The street was quiet, not surprising considering the weather.
    Echoing voices, too low to understand, floated in the wind and made my skin crawl. I heard the metallic clang of an aluminum door and Manny came running from the side of the house. He was a pudgy kid of fifteen or sixteen, wearing Toronto Maple Leafs sweatpants and a Boston Bruins jersey.
    Manny ran up to me, panting. “They’re inside, in the basement,” he whispered, though he was breathing so heavily it wouldn’t have mattered.
    I eyed Manny for a moment, looking for evidence of drug use or intoxication of any form. A bad drug trip, or to some a good trip, could make you hallucinate almost anything. I knew a girl in high school to whom the Virgin Mary appeared and cooked her bacon and eggs every Sunday during church. Then, we found out she was also doing a double hit of acid before the sermon. Hell, I believe in the spiritual and supernatural and I’m convinced that most of the sightings out there are drug-induced.
    With enough experience, a person could generally tell by a four-second look into someone’s eyes. I’d learned that growing up in the north where too many of my friends fell in with the