The Ghosts You Left Behind

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It doesn’t take long to discover the lone sprite’s preferred brew. Since it’s a sprite, I start with extra sweet and extra light. I end there as well.

The thing lazes in the steam rising from the cup. The other sprites surround it as if they’re curious and a bit perplexed about this choice. Then they, too, insist on their own cups.

“Power of suggestion?” Malcolm says.

“Maybe.” I’m certain they’ll go back to demanding coconut milk and vanilla syrup the next time we catch them. Sprites don’t have much of an attention span.

The conference room settles into a post-coffee stupor. Everyone—ghost and human—has had their fill. Tara has gone home for the day. From the laptop comes the warm clatter of Sadie and Nigel cooking dinner. He’s on call, but I don’t think we’ll need him. We have the list of malls, and we have this sprite. I’m not sure we’ll need anything else.

But the list is endless.

Nigel included not only the high-end malls in the area, but also strip malls and outlet centers. This could take a while.

“Do you think it would let you go all necromancer on it?” I say to Malcolm. I hate to ask, but I still don’t like doing that. On my own, I can generally gauge intentions, feelings, and desires, but we need something more specific if we’re going to find this mall.

Malcolm holds out a hand, and the sprite slips from the coffee’s steam and into his palm. “I can try.”

I watch, fascinated by this. Although, truthfully, I’m fascinated by everything Malcolm does. He cups the sprite in his hands and holds it close to his lips. Then he shuts his eyes. His lashes are long and dark against his cheekbones, his mouth is slightly parted and soft. It takes every last bit of my willpower not to lean over and kiss him.

I resist. Besides, I’d only end up with a mouthful of sprite.

A minute passes, and then another. I bite my lip, waiting to hear what this ghost might tell Malcolm. The silence stretches until, at last, he exhales the sprite and slumps back in his chair. The sprite swirls around its cup, agitated again. I hop up and pour it a new one.

“Anything?” I ask.

He shakes his head as if to clear it of ghostly cobwebs. “It’s weird. I kept getting flashes of things that don’t make sense. Radio Shack and big hair.” He holds his hands above his head.

“Radio Shack?”

“And big hair and grunge. It’s like this sprite traveled back in time. Plus?” Now he laughs, the sound warm and soft. “I have the strangest urge for an Orange Julius.”

The notion makes me laugh as well. As slim as these details are, they point to a mall, maybe an older one. It’s something to go on, at least.

“Well?” I say, a notion forming in my head. “Why don’t we?”

Malcolm has the uncanny ability to take the barest hints of my thoughts and turn them into action. He leans forward and shouts into the laptop’s microphone.

“Hey, bro. Katy and I are heading out on a field trip.”

The pounding of footfalls follows this declaration. All at once, Nigel’s face looms, filling up the entire screen, his expression panicked. “The one hundred percent Kona?”

I hold a thermos between my palms. “We’ll drop this off on our way out of town.”

We’ve been driving for hours. At each mall’s entrance, I lift the sprite in its Tupperware container and let it look around. The moment it starts to sink, we move on. We don’t even bother with some places. True, the Mall of America has an Orange Julius, but it’s far too bustling and busy to be a good candidate.

Part of me suspects we’re being led on a wild goose—or ghost—chase.

But it’s early June in Minnesota. After a long and icy winter, the explosion of green and the warm air that washes over us, filled with the perfume of both lilacs and barbeques, are worth the miles we’re putting on Malcolm’s convertible.

At the moment, we’re sitting in a strip mall parking lot, in front of a Chinese takeout place. Between us is an extra-large portion of dumplings. I hold the container steady while Malcolm alternately spears a dumpling and checks the list of malls that Nigel compiled.

My gaze drifts over the storefronts. In addition to the restaurant, there’s a consignment shop, a shoe-repair store, and a karate studio. Also? One, two... five security cameras.

“If you were going to hide some ghosts in a mall,” he says, “what kind of mall would it be?”

“An empty one.”

I speak the words without thinking, but the moment I do, something strikes me. I shift in my seat and look at Malcolm. “If you were a necromancer with ghosts to hide, would you want to leave behind any evidence?”

Ghosts don’t show up on film, but necromancers certainly do. I point to the security cameras. “Wouldn’t you want to avoid those?”

He drops his fork. “You’re brilliant.”

Well, not really. If I were, I would’ve thought of that before we burned through half a tank of gas. “How do we find an empty mall?”

“It can’t be too hard. A couple of guys in my frat house would go to places around the Twin Cities that were abandoned,” he says, “just to see what was inside. You know, urban exploring.”

“Is that legal?”

He shrugs. “Not always.”

“Did you ever go with them?”

“Once,” he admits. “They thought they sensed something, so they came back and got me.”

“Was it a ghost?”

“Probably.” He shifts again and spears another dumpling. “By the time we returned, it was gone. But there were remnants of a containment field and a ward. I didn’t recognize the signature. The whole place was creepy, though, so it was just as well.”

His story reminds me of the warehouse filled with Springside ghosts. That had been abandoned, too. The rooms were surrounded by containment fields and wards, all to trap the ghosts inside.

“So, this is something necromancers do?” I say. “Find abandoned places and store ghosts there?”

“Most necromancers like to keep their ghosts close. If you don’t have them, you can’t use them, right? But—” Here, he breaks off, considers the dumpling on his fork, and then sets it down. “There’s another school of thought. About keeping ghosts in reserve, secret stashes, and all that. If you’re on the run, you would always have access to some ghosts.”

“Is that something the Midwest Necromancer Association might do?”

“It is.”

“Orson Yates?”

“Him, too, especially.”

No one—that we know of—has seen or heard from Orson since he faced retribution at the hands of the Midwest Necromancer Association last fall. Technically, he’s no longer a necromancer. Technically, that means he’s no longer a problem.

Most days, I believe that.

“You don’t suppose these guys have been locked up since last year, do you?” I raise the sprite in its container to eye level. It bounces up and down, but that’s only because I’m giving it my full attention.

“It’s entirely possible. With a small enough space, a powerful necromancer could construct a containment field that could last for months, even a year.”

“So,” I say now, stabbing a dumpling of my own. “How do we find this empty mall?”

Within minutes, we’re ready to go, a much shorter list of malls on my phone, and only one dumpling left in the takeout container.

I hold up my phone so Malcolm can see the screen. “The Cedar Hills Mall is only five miles from here.”

He pops the last dumpling into his mouth and then swings us onto the interstate. We take the first exit for Cedar Hills, which leads to an industrial park rather than the downtown area.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been out this way before.” He doesn’t glance from the road, but I get the sense he’s taking everything in. The woods and rolling hills that border the Minnesota River, its sandy banks, and how it twists and turns through this part of the state.

“It’s a college town,” I say. “Every once in a while, we’d get a call for an eradication. The historic buildings in the city center sometimes attract ghosts, and the cemetery is supposedly haunted.”

He eyes me briefly before turning his attention back to the road. “Is it?”

Really? He has to ask? No matter what you’ve heard, ghosts rarely haunt cemeteries. Except for maybe sprites. And only then to play pranks.

“There’s a memorial there, an angel carved in black stone. Legend has it if you touch it, you die within the year.”

“A real tourist attraction.”

“Actually? It is.”

“Let me guess. Legend tripping?”

I nod. “It gets a lot of traffic on Halloween, college kids, mainly.”

“I imagine there are sprites on hand to help with that.”

“You imagine right.”

We’ve been chatting for so long that it’s only now that I notice the fields on either side of us. Row after row of young cornstalks, the green hopeful, the earth between each row black and rich. We’ve left the woods and the rolling landscape and Cedar Hills behind.

Before I can touch his arm or say a word, Malcolm slows the convertible and pulls to the side of the road. Traffic is nonexistent. In the quiet, birds chirp, and a rustling comes from the field to our right.

“We blew right by the industrial park,” he says. “I don’t even remember seeing a turnoff, do you?”

I shake my head.

“Did you see a sign for the mall?”

Again, I go with a headshake.

Malcolm swings the car around, and we head back toward Cedar Hills. I lean forward as if that will somehow help me spot the exit. We’re nearly into downtown when we realize that—once again—we’ve missed the turnoff.

He pulls the convertible into a lot for a local park and shuts off the engine. The squeals and chatter of children playing fill the air. Laughter and splashing come from a swim area. Beyond that stretches the glimmering blue of a lake. The scent of toasted marshmallows floats in the air. The whole scene is serene and idyllic and plays counterpoint to the unease swirling in my stomach.

“That was weird,” Malcolm says.

It was. It really was. “There must be a turnoff. Should we ask someone? Get a map?” I hold up my phone. “GPS?”

He surveys the crowd of parents and children. “Let’s try GPS. I’m going to feel really stupid asking for directions if we missed the turnoff because we weren’t paying attention.”

I type in the address while he starts up the car. Since traffic is still nonexistent on the outskirts of town, we inch along at twenty miles per hour below the speed limit.

“Here!” I cry out.

“Katy, there’s nothing—”

“Here,” I say. “Pull over.”

My phone insists our destination is six hundred feet ahead and on the right. The only thing that fills our view is a copse of trees.

Malcolm turns the wheel, the convertible bumping onto the shoulder, the tires crunching gravel. Then, with the engine off, evening rushes in, all soft air and birdsong. The road is so very quiet that I’m finding it hard to believe anyone comes out this way.

The grove of evergreens to our right is so lush that I expect pine to also lace the air. But I don’t smell anything but dust and the leftover tang of ginger and soy sauce. The needles glimmer in the early evening light. The arrangement of each tree is so perfect that it looks picture-postcard-ready, like something from a calendar or inspirational poster.

In fact, I’m nearly certain I have seen this particular copse of trees somewhere before.

And that’s weird.

I step from the convertible and walk toward the pines.

“Katy—”

Malcolm’s voice is filled with worry and warning, but really, what’s there to be afraid of? I’m a few feet away, then a few inches, and still no scent of pine, and no telltale needles beneath my feet, either.

I reach out a hand, expecting the needles to be smooth and sharp, perhaps a bit sticky with sap. My fingers pass all the way through, first the needles and then an entire branch.

“They’re not real!” I spin to face Malcolm.

“What?”

“The trees. They’re not real!”

To prove it, I jump straight through.