Locket and Leave It 3/3
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Chapter 2
Gil’s discomfort was growing by the minute, and not because Sammy and Violetta had Zoing out of his tank and were playing blocks with him on the floor. Zoing was clearly enjoying the attention, and Sammy was taking the opportunity to recite all the lobster facts he knew for Violetta, who’d never seen a live one before, so that was okay. It wasn’t the motel itself, either; most of the places they’d stayed had a bad aura, and Gil had learned long ago to tune it out. It wasn’t even Dean, who was on watch. He was watching TV from Dad’s bed and was pretty relaxed under the circumstances.
No, it was Tarvek. He’d gone back to the Winchesters’ room after only a few minutes of watching Violetta and Sammy, claiming he had a headache and was going to take a nap. But the pain Gil sensed rolling off of him wasn’t physical, and it was just as obvious that he wasn’t really asleep.
Finally, Gil sighed and went through to the other room, sat down on the empty bed, and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Go away,” Tarvek said to the wall.
“I know you don’t really have a headache. Why are you hiding?”
Tarvek sighed heavily. “Your fathers don’t like me.”
Gil decided not to correct the plural for the moment. “What makes you say that?”
Tarvek rolled over to face him, frowning. “They didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“My father was a gangster. A drug dealer. He killed my sister yesterday.”
“Oh. Gee. I’m sorry. Was it an accident, or....”
“No, it was murder. Father was stoned, but I... I think he meant to. And the awful thing is, if he hadn’t shot her, I think she would have killed him.” When Gil’s jaw dropped, Tarvek continued, “Look, my great-grandfather was to Detroit what Capone was to Chicago. The only member of my family I’ve ever been able to trust is Violetta. I don’t blame your fathers for not trusting me.”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,” Gil noted.
Tarvek frowned. “What are you, psychic?”
Gil rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to think of an explanation; psychic didn’t seem to fit the way he could sense things, but he’d never tried to find a word for it before and wasn’t sure what would be better. He’d just remembered the term psionic from Doctor Who when Mr. Winchester’s coded knock sounded at the door. Gil got up to answer, but Mr. Winchester had taken his own key and opened the door himself.
“Gil, Tarvek,” he said as he came in. “Where’s—”
“Next door, sir,” Gil answered at the same time Dean called, “In here, Dad.”
“Get your coats,” Mr. Winchester ordered, loudly enough to be heard in the next room.
Tarvek sat up at that.
Violetta bounced through the connecting doorway, a coat in each hand, as a splash announced that Sammy had put Zoing back in his tank. “Time for lunch?” she asked.
“Little early for that yet,” Mr. Winchester answered, and Gil looked at the clock to see that it was only 10:30. “Although we probably will eat while we’re out. Some old friends of Mr. Wulfenbach’s have invited us over, want you kids to meet their daughter.”
“Oh! Okay, cool!” Violetta hurried over to hand Tarvek his coat.
“All of us?” Tarvek asked, looking worried.
“All of you,” Mr. Winchester confirmed. “Mr. Wulfenbach’s gone on ahead. You two ride with Pastor Jim; he wants to talk to you about some things before you join us. Dean, Gil, and Sammy, with me.”
“Yes, sir,” the boys all chorused, and everyone rushed to put on coats and leave, all piling into the waiting cars at the same time.
But rather than leaving at once, Mr. Winchester waited until Pastor Murphy had driven away before turning around to look at the three boys in the back seat. “One thing you should know, boys.”
“Is this a hunt, sir?” Dean asked. A few months ago, he might have been less direct, but Sammy had found Mr. Winchester’s journal while their dads had been gone before Christmas, and as a result, Gil had also found out what they did.
“It is,” Mr. Winchester replied. “Near as we can figure, anyway. Uncle Bobby’s meeting us there, too. The girl’s Sammy’s age; she’s the victim. I want you three to find out what you can from her while we talk with her parents.”
“Yes, sir,” the boys chorused.
Mr. Winchester nodded and backed out of the parking space.
“Are Tarvek and Vi going to live with Pastor Jim?” Sammy asked.
“Probably,” Mr. Winchester answered. “Nothing’s set yet. That’s what they’re going to talk about. We also think Tarvek’s dad might have something to do with what’s happening to Agatha, although we’re not really sure yet. That’s why I want you boys to talk to her first.”
“Okay. I mean, yes, sir.”
“Oh, and just so you know, Mr. Clay is mute. He can hear, but he talks through Sign.”
“Good thing we learned Sign at Pastor Jim’s church last summer,” Dean said. “Gil, do you....”
“Dad taught me,” Gil replied. “There’ve been times when we needed it, if he thought our room might be bugged or something. He said he learned from Mr. Clay.”
“Awesome. We should practice sometime.”
“Yeah, sure!”
They didn’t say much else on the short trip to the Clays’ house, which was two stories tall and had a two-car garage. It was a pretty house, with blue siding, white trim, and a metal roof, and the front lawn and flower beds were neatly manicured. Still, something felt off from the moment the Winchesters’ car turned onto the Clays’ street, and that feeling only got stronger as Mr. Winchester parked in the driveway and led the boys up to the front door. Sammy started squirming as they walked and kept looking worriedly up at Dean, but Dean didn’t seem to notice. So Gil tapped Sammy’s shoulder and nodded when Sammy looked at him. Sammy relaxed a little, understanding that it wasn’t just him, but didn’t look any less worried as Mr. Winchester knocked on the door.
A tall brunette lady—maybe as tall as Dad!—answered the door and smiled welcomingly. “You must be Mr. Winchester,” she said, shaking hands.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Winchester replied. “My sons Dean and Sammy, and Klaus’ son Gil.”
Mrs. Clay shook hands with each boy but chuckled when she got to Gil. “I’d know whose you were a mile off, Gil. You favor your grandmother.”
Gil didn’t know what to say to that, so he just smiled.
“Do come in,” Mrs. Clay continued and stepped back to let them into the front hall. “Agatha, dear?”
A blonde girl with big round glasses and a wild cowlick came out of the room to their right, looking like she didn’t feel very well. And Gil suddenly felt light-headed. Here was the focus of the wrongness, for sure, but the wrongness was trying to suppress something else about her that Gil couldn’t put his finger on but that made his heart race.
“Here are the boys Uncle Klaus wanted you to meet,” Mrs. Clay told her. “This is Dean, Sammy, and Gil. Boys, this is Agatha.”
“Hi,” said Dean, shaking hands.
“That’s a pretty name,” said Sammy, earning a smile.
“Hi,” said Gil, extending his hand. “Nice to me—”
He broke off briefly as she took his hand because he felt a jolt of something—not static electricity; deeper and stronger and indefinable, wonderful and scary all at once—pass between them as if they had just closed the switch on a circuit. He’d shaken hands with a lot of people in his life, but never had he felt anything like that before. Her eyes widened at the same time, and he could tell she felt it, too.
“—eet you,” he finished, hoping he didn’t sound as breathless as he felt.
“Uh,” she replied and snatched her hand away. “Hi.”
Mrs. Clay put her hand on Agatha’s back. “Why don’t you and the boys go in the living room to visit while Dad and I chat with Uncle Klaus and his friends?”
“’Kay,” Agatha said and rubbed at her forehead. “In here,” she told the boys, looking mostly at Gil, and pointed into the room she’d just come from.
“Are you okay?” Gil asked, not quite sure what he meant, as the four of them went into the living room and Mr. Winchester followed Mrs. Clay deeper into the house.
“I get these headaches,” Agatha explained and sat gingerly on the couch. “Today’s not quite so bad, but it’s still bad enough. Sorry,” she added.
“What are you sorry for?” Dean returned, plopping down in one of the recliners as Sammy sat on the loveseat and Gil hesitated, unsure where to sit. “It’s not your fault. Not like you can plan headaches, even if you’d known we were coming.”
“I know, but you came to see me, and I feel like I’m being a bad hostess. It’s an awful first impression.”
That made up Gil’s mind. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said, sitting down on the other end of the couch. (He couldn’t pull her into a comforting hug. He’d just met her.) “Mr. Winchester warned us you might not be feeling too good.”
She smiled at him, but it didn’t ease the pain lines around her eyes. “Thanks.”
“That’s a pretty necklace,” Sammy remarked, pointing to—huh. Now that he looked at it, Gil couldn’t really see the gold pendant Agatha was wearing, even though he’d noticed it before they’d shaken hands. At this angle, there was some sort of black fog around it.
Agatha reached up and played with the pendant like she was nervous. “Thanks. My parents gave it to me for my birthday last year. It was my mother’s—my birth mother’s, I mean. It’s a locket, actually, has their picture in it. Only one I have, really.”
Dean frowned. “You’re adopted?”
Agatha nodded. “My birth parents were killed the same day I was born. My uncle didn’t think he could take care of me, so Mom and Dad adopted me. They already had a daughter; her name’s Maxinia. She’s all grown up and married now. They live in Omaha. And she’s gonna have a baby soon!”
“Oh, awesome!”
“Not that I care,” Agatha continued in a louder, harsher, much older tone and with a snooty expression, and the darkness around the locket pulsed. “It’s not like I ever see them anyway.”
The boys exchanged a look.
The snooty expression vanished into confusion, and Agatha blinked. “Um. Did... did I say something mean?”
“Yeah, kind of,” Dean answered. “Not super mean, but a little.”
Agatha groaned and rubbed her forehead again. “This keeps happening. Sometimes I black out a little; sometimes I just hear myself saying something, and... and it’s not me saying it. It’s really scary.”
“I bet,” Gil said carefully. “When did this start?”
“Last year.”
“Was it before or after your birthday?”
“Um... a few weeks after. Can’t remember for sure. The headaches started first. I’ve been to all kinds of doctors, but they can’t find anything wrong.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed. “That’s interesting.”
Sammy hummed thoughtfully and turned to Dean. “I wonder if it’s that dis—discosiative—”
“Dissociative identity disorder? You mean like multiple personalities?”
“HA!” Agatha cried in that other voice, and the darkness flared up even more. “What does a child know about psychology?” Then the darkness subsided again, and she blinked and buried her face in her hands with a groan.
“Yahtzee!” Sammy breathed and looked at Gil. “Did you—”
Gil nodded. “Yeah. It’s the locket.”
Dean frowned and looked from his brother to Gil and back again. “O-kay. But we’re gonna need a better way to prove that to Dad than just your say-so.”
Agatha tried to hum thoughtfully, but the darkness flared again, and she broke off with a cry of pain and clutched at her head.
“What about an EMF meter?” Gil suggested. “Isn’t that what they use on all the ghost-hunting shows?”
“Yeah,” Dean replied, “but I don’t think Dad has one.”
“Could we make one?”
Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “Maybe. But where—”
“Da—Da—Daddy’s got a workbench,” Agatha gasped. “In the garage. Has... some ele-... electronics stuff. Owwwww....”
Nuts to everything, Gil thought and slid over to put an arm around her shoulders. “Do you think you can walk?”
She nodded slightly. “If you guy—guys can he—help me, I can... I can show you.”
Sammy jumped up and ran over as Gil let her grip his free hand and did his best to ignore the head rush that followed. As they stood, Sammy pulled her free arm around his shoulders and put a steadying arm around her waist.
Dean stood, too, and went ahead of them to the hall. “Which way?”
“Kitchen,” Agatha panted. “Straight back... then right.”
Sammy and Gil tried to help her to walk, but another pain spike nearly sent her to the ground. So Gil scooped her up and carried her out after Dean and Sammy, past what was probably the dining room—he could hear the adults talking, but they didn’t seem to notice what the kids were doing—and into the spacious kitchen. Dean tried one door that turned out to be the pantry, another that went to the laundry room, and finally the door that clearly led to the garage. Sammy ran through first and found a shop heater to switch on.
“Are either of these cars unlocked?” Gil asked Agatha as he followed Sammy.
“Nuh,” Agatha answered. “But there’s... there’s some lawn chairs....”
“I spy,” said Dean and went to get two of them. He set them up close to the heater, but not too close, and Gil eased Agatha into one of them while Sammy sat down in the other.
“Anything else we need before we get started?” Gil asked the group at large.
Dean had grabbed a stepstool and was investigating the upper cabinets of Mr. Clay’s work area. “Everything’s labeled,” he reported. “Think we’re good to go.”
“Awesome.” Gil went to the workbench and grabbed two pairs of safety glasses from a bin as Dean climbed down with a handful of equipment. “Have you ever done this before?”
“No. You?”
“Never.”
Gil handed Dean a pair of glasses. Dean handed Gil a soldering iron.
“You ready?” Dean asked, grinning.
Gil grinned back. “Let’s rock.”
“I mean, it happens to all of us, doesn’t it?” Judy said. “You open your mouth, and your mother comes out, or your father. But Agatha never knew Lucrezia. She and Bill killed each other the day Agatha was born. Granted, she does favor Lucrezia in looks, and her voice is very similar to Lucrezia’s, but... in personality, she’s pretty much a cross between Bill and Barry. I had never heard her say anything that sounded like what Lucrezia would say until all this started.”
And she swears not her, Adam added.
Nodding, Judy interpreted that for Bobby. “She’s always very embarrassed when it happens, and it’s usually when she’s fighting a headache anyway.”
“You say Barry mentioned Lucrezia referring to Agatha as a vessel,” John noted. “Did he say anything about strange events the night she turned six months old?”
Adam and Judy exchanged a look. “Not that I remember,” Judy answered, and Adam shook his head. “What sort of strange events?”
“Anything. Lights flickering; sulfur in her bedroom; cattle mutilations; house fire.”
“House fire?!”
“Just examples,” Bobby interjected, giving John a warning glare.
“I think Barry would have said something about that,” Klaus said drily.
More worried about self, Adam signed. Thought cursed.
“Cursed? In what sense?”
“He said he felt like there was something odd in his blood, like some kind of power,” Judy answered. “He was very worried that he’d lose control and accidentally hurt Agatha. He didn’t tell us anything specific... although now that you mention it, the lights do flicker sometimes when Agatha’s headaches are worst.”
John frowned; he’d never heard of anyone older than Sammy dealing with that sort of problem before. But before he could ask anything more, Jim finally arrived with Tarvek and Violetta and returned Klaus’ room key, which he’d borrowed so they could go back and get the kids’ bags if needed. After the usual round of introductions, Judy started to send the new kids into the living room, only to find that Agatha and the boys were gone. Nor were they across the hall in what looked like a piano studio.
“Huh,” Judy said, looking around. “I wonder where—”
Suddenly there was a scream from the garage.
“GIL!” Klaus cried.
Everyone charged back toward the kitchen, only to be met by Dean running in with what looked like a Walkman with an antenna, which brought them to a halt. “Dad, there’s something wrong with Agatha’s locket,” he said urgently and brandished his gadget. “It’s generating EMF, and we tried to take it off of her, but it won’t let us.”
“You mean the clasp is stuck?” John asked.
“No, I mean it won’t let us. I can’t even get close to it. Sammy can, but he can’t touch it. Gil got hold of the clasp, but when he tried to open it, it shocked him. And Agatha keeps chanting it’s hers, like... like... like Gollum with the Ring!”
“Curse box,” Bobby said and ran out to the Chevelle.
“When you say you can’t get close,” Jim pressed, “do you mean a force field, or....”
Dean grimaced. “No, it’s... this really strong thought that the locket has to stay on.”
Tarvek gulped audibly.
Klaus rounded on him. “What did your father want with Agatha? What was he trying to do?”
Tarvek quailed but answered, “T-t-to bring Lucrezia back!”
Judy gasped. Adam and Jim stared. Klaus looked like thunder.
And then from the garage came a feminine “Aaaaroooon....”
The color drained from Tarvek’s face. “Oh, no.”
Agatha giggled. “I heeear you, Aaaaarooon.”
Tarvek’s eyes glazed over. Alarmed, Violetta tried to grab his arm, but he dodged her.
“I’m waaaaitiiiiiing.” Another giggle. “Aaaaaaaaarooooooon....”
Breathing hard, Tarvek started toward the garage as if fighting against every motion, yet deftly avoided any adult attempt to stop him. About the time he crossed the threshold, Bobby came back in with the curse box and followed Tarvek into the garage. Klaus, John, and Dean followed Bobby, and everyone else crowded in behind them.
In the garage, Gil was sprawled on the floor behind a pair of lawn chairs, and Sammy was sitting next to him, apparently monitoring his pulse. Agatha was sitting in one of the lawn chairs in a pose that was totally wrong for a nine-year-old, with a wicked grin on her face as she beckoned Tarvek nearer. And Tarvek, twitching and shuffling, kept heading toward her as if drawn by a tractor beam.
“Yeeessss,” Agatha said. “Thaaat’s it, darling. Closer... cloooseeer....”
Tarvek finally lurched to a stop in front of her chair. Then, still moving slowly and jerkily, he raised a hand and reached for the locket.
“Yes... yes... you know what to do, my darling... say it... say it....”
Tarvek’s hand closed around the locket, and he hesitated for the space of two harsh pants—and then, with a sudden snarl of “Go to hell, witch!” yanked the pendant off the chain and hurled it into the curse box, which Bobby slammed shut. And the tension in the air vanished.
“Three-pointer!” Gil cheered and sat up.
“Mommy!” Agatha wailed and ran into Judy’s waiting arms.
Violetta passed her, going the other way. “Don’t DO that to me!” she cried, kicking Tarvek’s shins repeatedly and making him yelp in pain.
As Jim pulled her away and Klaus pushed past to check on Gil, Bobby went over to put a hand on Tarvek’s shoulder. “You’re a damn fine actor, boy. Almost had me fooled for a sec.”
Tarvek smiled ruefully. “Thank you, sir.”
“I should have remembered,” John agreed. “You’ve got a hex bag, haven’t you?”
Tarvek nodded and pulled the top of the leather pouch out of his shirt. “I knew Lucrezia wouldn’t know I had it, but I couldn’t tell whether she was expecting my father or if she knew it was me and thought I was under thrall. My given name is Aaron Travis; Tarvek’s a family nickname Dyedushka gave me.”
“And how did you know it was her?”
Tarvek looked back toward the door, apparently checking to make sure Agatha was out of earshot, and sat down in one of the lawn chairs with a sigh. “Long, weird combination of things, really. I recognized her voice because... one time, when I was little, I woke up thirsty one night, but I wasn’t supposed to wake my nanny or buzz for a servant after bedtime. So I went downstairs to try to get a glass of milk or something from the kitchen, and... there was Father with this woman. Lucrezia. She was backed up against the wall, and he was....” He grimaced. “He was all over her, even though she was really pregnant. But I remember she had that locket on; I noticed it because it caught the light when Father’s head wasn’t in the way. And she said something I couldn’t really hear well, but it was something along the lines of always coming back to him, even if she died. I... decided I didn’t really need a glass of milk after all and went back upstairs, so I didn’t hear a lot more than that. At least, not then. Then we found out that Lucrezia did die, and Father—I think he was drunk for a month. I can’t really remember now. Mother took us to Russia for a while and made sure I stayed in the nursery for a long time after we came back.”
“But she wasn’t as cautious with Anevka,” Klaus noted.
“Anevka was ten years older than I am. And Mother was gone a lot. The only reason Father married her in the first place was that Lucrezia was married to someone else and he needed Dyedushka’s goodwill. The night it... it happened... like I said, Father was really high, and he was the first to admit it afterward. He told me once he’d thought Anevka had the gift of being a medium and had her channel Lucrezia, only when she manifested, the ectoplasm was generated from Anevka’s body, and when Father tried to make out with the ghost, it harmed Anevka. But I think he just got that idea from a story I read once.* I think maybe he was so high he thought Anevka was Lucrezia and... just... went too far.”
“Ewwwwww!” said Violetta, making a face.
“Did he try with anyone else?” Jim asked.
“Oh, yes.” Tarvek ran a hand over his face. “After Mother died, he kept this... this harem of strawberry blondes in one of the guest houses. And every so often, especially when a new shipment of drugs came in, he’d... I-I don’t know details. If he sacrificed them, tried to summon her ghost into them, I don’t know. That’s one of the few things he never got around to telling me. All I know for sure is that a woman would come in the main house at night, and a body bag went in the river in the morning.”
Jim crossed himself and shook his head.
“You keep saying your dad told you stuff,” Gil said. “Was this, like, over dinner?!”
Tarvek shook his head. “No, no, just the last year or so, whenever he’d make me try to find Agatha. He did try to scry for her, but none of the tracking spells worked. I don’t know why. What usually happened was that he’d start out looking over my shoulder, but as slow as Gopher is, he’d get bored and go off to get drunk, high, or both. Sometimes he wouldn’t come back, which was good. But when he did come back, he wouldn’t watch what I was doing; he would just... start telling me things about Lucrezia, things I really never needed to know. I guess he was trying to justify what he was doing. The last time, though, I did ask him at the start why he was so anxious to find this girl, and he said he thought she might have something on her, like that locket, that he could use to bring Lucrezia back through her. I don’t know if he meant possession or what.”
“Whoever heard of a witch who really died?” Sammy quoted from Prince Caspian. “You can always get them back.”
“Not if we can help it,” Bobby growled.
“Indeed,” Jim agreed. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to bring back a woman capable of that!”
“Just one thing, Uncle Bobby,” Dean said. “Agatha says that’s the only picture of her birth parents she has.”
Bobby nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I’ll see what I can find out. If there’s some way to lift whatever this curse is, I’ll do it for her. Cain’t promise, though.”
At that, Sammy ran over to give Bobby a hug. “You’re the best, Uncle Bobby.”
“Well,” said Klaus, helping Gil to his feet. “If anyone has any appetite left, I vote we go get some lunch.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” John agreed, looking at Dean, and Dean nodded.
Tarvek looked a little green at the idea, but Jim said, “We already ate. And I think it’s time we were on our way. Don’t you, Violetta?”
“Yeah,” Violetta agreed. “If Uncle Aaron’s people haven’t figured out yet that we’ve left the state, Dyedushka’s might have. The sooner we get away from Agatha, the better for her.”
Tarvek nodded. “And I don’t know what commands Father might have given his people in the event of his death. I mean, he knew his deal was coming due soon, but I don’t know if he’d put plans in place this far ahead.”
Dean shivered. “Talking about people like they were robots, man... it’s freaky.”
“Yeah, well, that’s thrall for you,” Tarvek sighed and stood up. “And the sad thing is, if Mother hadn’t insisted on putting me in public school for a couple of years, I might not even have known that was what was going on. I don’t think I’d ever realized that it was normal for people to be able to disobey until I got to school and the other kids just... wouldn’t listen to the teacher.”
Nobody really knew what to say to that, so Jim just put a hand on Tarvek’s shoulder and said, “Let’s go, son.”
Tarvek nodded, and everyone followed them back toward the kitchen.
“Oh, Singer,” John said, stopping Bobby. “Since we’re this close to Lawrence, why not take that to Missouri, see what she can learn from it?”
Bobby hummed thoughtfully and nodded. “Was gonna take it to a friend of mine in Pontiac, but you’re right, Lawrence is closer.”
“Pontiac, Illinois?”
“Yeah.”
“We came that way. Roads are terrible.” John censored himself more for Violetta’s sake than for the boys’, even though she’d just gone inside. “Especially in Iowa.”
“Good to know. Thanks.”
When they walked back into the kitchen, Adam and a damp-faced Agatha were sitting at the table in the breakfast room with big mugs of what smelled like hot chocolate, and Tarvek was awkwardly trying to say goodbye. “I’m really sorry we met like this,” he was saying.
Agatha sniffled. “I don’t really remember what happened, but Daddy says you were very brave. Thank you.”
Tarvek ducked his head, blushing a little. “I just couldn’t let her do that to you. Can we still be friends?”
Agatha nodded, smiling shyly.
“Me, too?” Violetta asked.
Agatha’s smile grew. “Sure, I’d like that.”
“YAY!”
“Agatha?” Judy called, coming downstairs with a small jewelry box with a bow on it.
Agatha sniffled again. “Yes, ma’am?”
Hunters and kids made way for Judy as she came into the breakfast room. “Dad and I were saving this until you were a little older,” she began, “but if you promise to be careful with it, we think you should have it now.”
“I promise!”
Judy handed her the box, and Agatha opened it to reveal a small leather pouch that looked like a hex bag. Gil and Tarvek both gasped.
“This was your father’s,” Judy explained when Agatha looked at her in confusion. “And if I’m not mistaken, your Grandma Teodora gave it to him when he was very small, to help protect him when they were escaping from the Nazis.”
The kids all oohed and ahhed.
“No wonder my father could never find you,” Tarvek said. “He only tried at night, when you were home and this was shielding you.”
Gil nodded, staring at the bag. “That is... that is neat.”
Dean looked at Gil, eyebrow raised. “Major mojo, huh?”
“Oh, yeah. The good kind.”
Agatha gingerly picked up the bag and turned it over in her hand.
“Don’t take it apart,” Tarvek cautioned. “Whatever’s in there needs to stay there. Otherwise it won’t work.”
Agatha nodded. “Thanks. What’s this?” she added, running her finger over a design tooled in the leather.
“I don’t know, dear,” Judy admitted. “Anyone?”
Agatha held it up for general inspection—and John’s heart almost stopped. He’d seen that six-pointed star before.
When Bobby, Jim, and Tarvek all shook their heads, John cleared his throat. “My father used to have a tie tack with that on it. And my... my wife had a charm bracelet with all kinds of... protective symbols, I guess. She stopped wearing it after we got married. Anyway, that was one of the charms on it.”
“Either of ’em say what it was?” Bobby asked.
John shook his head. “Asked Pops, and he... he said he’d tell me when I was older. That was the night he disappeared, in ’58.”
Judy blinked. “Don’t tell me you’re—you’re Cousin Millie’s son?!”
John frowned. “Wait, you’re....”
“Wright. Judy Wright. My mother and yours were first cousins!”
“Wright....” Now that John thought about it, he did vaguely remember getting Christmas cards from the Wrights in Mechanicsburg, and Judy’s voice was somewhat familiar, too. “Did... did you and your mom come out that next summer to help us move to Lawrence?”
“Mom did. I had basketball camp.”
“That’s right. I remember now. Man... small world!”
Agatha’s eyes went wide, and she turned to Sammy. “Does that mean we’re cousins?”
“I guess, sorta,” Sammy replied, grinning.
“Awesome!”
And on that much happier note, Jim and Bobby took their leave, and Sammy and Gil sat down to chatter with Agatha while John and Klaus signed with Adam and Dean helped Judy start lunch.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Gil asked Agatha late that afternoon while everyone else was busy elsewhere.
Agatha nodded. “I haven’t had a headache since Tarvek took the locket off. And the weird thing is, I don’t know why I never took it off before.”
“That might have been part of the curse. Tarvek said his dad thought your mother wanted to use you to resurrect herself, and if she was... I dunno, haunting the locket or something, she wouldn’t want you to take it off.”
She shivered. “Now I know why my parents don’t talk about her much.”
“Yeah.”
“So, um... you’re not... staying in town, are you? I mean, moving here?”
He shook his head. “No. I’d kinda like to, but I don’t really get a vote.”
“Oh.” She looked disappointed for a moment but then asked, “You wanna be pen pals?”
His heart skipped a beat. “Sure. I’ve never had a pen pal before.”
“Really? Don’t your friends ever write to you?”
“Never really had friends, except Sammy and Dean.” When her jaw dropped, he added, “Well, Dad has me homeschooling ’cause we move so much. And there’s been some weird... stuff with paperwork I don’t really understand, although I think Mr. Winchester said Mr. Singer might be able to help us with it.”
“Well, you have a friend now,” she declared and kissed his cheek.
He was still trying to recover enough to figure out how to respond when Mrs. Clay called everyone into the kitchen to hear a call from Mr. Singer, which Mr. Winchester was just switching to speakerphone on the kitchen extension.
“All right, you’re on speaker,” Mr. Winchester announced.
“Bad news,” Mr. Singer began. “Seems Lucrezia was into some hardcore necromancy, set the spell with her own blood and her dying breath. It can’t be broken.”
“She is one mad mama,” added a lady’s voice. “That poor boy’d be a heap o’ ashes if this curse box weren’t so strong.”
“Kudos to Tarvek, then,” Dad said. “So what’s the bottom line? Can the picture be saved?”
“No chance,” Mr. Singer said regretfully. “Hate to say this, Miss Agatha, but the only safe thing to do with this locket is to burn it. But I won’t do that without your say-so.”
Agatha swallowed hard and took Mrs. Clay’s hand. “Is... is my mother haunting it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the lady with Mr. Singer said. “Got her soul tied into it so tight, only way she’ll let go of her own accord is to move into you.”
“But if you burn it, she can’t hold on to me anymore?”
“That’s right, baby. An’ you listen to Missouri, now—you already got a wonderful mama there, loves you like her own, ain’t never gonna hurt you. Wonderful daddy, too. An’ your father, seems like, was a real good man. This woman in here?” There was a thump, like the lady (Missouri?) was knocking on the curse box. “She might be blood, but she sure ain’t family. Those folks with you now, that’s your family.”
Agatha leaned against Mrs. Clay, took a deep breath, and said, “Burn it.”
Gil was insanely proud of her.
And it sounded like Mr. Singer was, too, when he replied, “Yes, ma’am. Good call.”
“Amen,” Missouri agreed. “God bless you, honey. You take care, now.”
“Thank you, Miss Missouri,” Agatha answered. “God bless you, too.”
Mr. Winchester hung up, and Mrs. Clay knelt and gave Agatha a big hug and let her cry a little.
“Guess we’d better head on back to the motel,” Dad said. “Zoing’s probably wondering where supper is.” When Mr. Clay signed something Gil didn’t catch, Dad glanced at Gil and added, “Well, we might stay a couple days.”
That led to a round of goodbyes and hugs from everyone, including Agatha, which left Gil dizzy. And then they piled into the Impala, got fried chicken to go, and went back to the motel. They ate in the Winchesters’ room, but Gil ate as fast as he could and then pled exhaustion, fed Zoing, and went straight to bed before anyone else was finished.
He couldn’t have a crush on Agatha. He couldn’t. She was nine—she was a kid still! What was going on?!
Suddenly, Zoing tapped on the wall of his tank to get Gil’s attention.
“What?”
Ugettagurl? Zoing asked.
“Oh, shut up,” Gil groaned, rolled over on his stomach, and pulled the pillow over his head.
“It’s not FAIR!” Lucrezia bawled. “Everything was PERFECT!”
“Now, now,” Alastair soothed, petting her head. “Azazel warned you nothing could be guaranteed without a deal. But perhaps you’re closer to your goal this way than you think.”
“Oh, please, please, I’ll do anything!”
“In due time, poppet. In due time. But there are certain procedures that have to be followed. After all....”
She gasped loudly as a thousand white-hot knives impaled her spectral form.
“... you are in Hell.”
* Said story is “The Last Séance” by Agatha Christie. It is super creepy.
Gil’s discomfort was growing by the minute, and not because Sammy and Violetta had Zoing out of his tank and were playing blocks with him on the floor. Zoing was clearly enjoying the attention, and Sammy was taking the opportunity to recite all the lobster facts he knew for Violetta, who’d never seen a live one before, so that was okay. It wasn’t the motel itself, either; most of the places they’d stayed had a bad aura, and Gil had learned long ago to tune it out. It wasn’t even Dean, who was on watch. He was watching TV from Dad’s bed and was pretty relaxed under the circumstances.
No, it was Tarvek. He’d gone back to the Winchesters’ room after only a few minutes of watching Violetta and Sammy, claiming he had a headache and was going to take a nap. But the pain Gil sensed rolling off of him wasn’t physical, and it was just as obvious that he wasn’t really asleep.
Finally, Gil sighed and went through to the other room, sat down on the empty bed, and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Go away,” Tarvek said to the wall.
“I know you don’t really have a headache. Why are you hiding?”
Tarvek sighed heavily. “Your fathers don’t like me.”
Gil decided not to correct the plural for the moment. “What makes you say that?”
Tarvek rolled over to face him, frowning. “They didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“My father was a gangster. A drug dealer. He killed my sister yesterday.”
“Oh. Gee. I’m sorry. Was it an accident, or....”
“No, it was murder. Father was stoned, but I... I think he meant to. And the awful thing is, if he hadn’t shot her, I think she would have killed him.” When Gil’s jaw dropped, Tarvek continued, “Look, my great-grandfather was to Detroit what Capone was to Chicago. The only member of my family I’ve ever been able to trust is Violetta. I don’t blame your fathers for not trusting me.”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,” Gil noted.
Tarvek frowned. “What are you, psychic?”
Gil rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to think of an explanation; psychic didn’t seem to fit the way he could sense things, but he’d never tried to find a word for it before and wasn’t sure what would be better. He’d just remembered the term psionic from Doctor Who when Mr. Winchester’s coded knock sounded at the door. Gil got up to answer, but Mr. Winchester had taken his own key and opened the door himself.
“Gil, Tarvek,” he said as he came in. “Where’s—”
“Next door, sir,” Gil answered at the same time Dean called, “In here, Dad.”
“Get your coats,” Mr. Winchester ordered, loudly enough to be heard in the next room.
Tarvek sat up at that.
Violetta bounced through the connecting doorway, a coat in each hand, as a splash announced that Sammy had put Zoing back in his tank. “Time for lunch?” she asked.
“Little early for that yet,” Mr. Winchester answered, and Gil looked at the clock to see that it was only 10:30. “Although we probably will eat while we’re out. Some old friends of Mr. Wulfenbach’s have invited us over, want you kids to meet their daughter.”
“Oh! Okay, cool!” Violetta hurried over to hand Tarvek his coat.
“All of us?” Tarvek asked, looking worried.
“All of you,” Mr. Winchester confirmed. “Mr. Wulfenbach’s gone on ahead. You two ride with Pastor Jim; he wants to talk to you about some things before you join us. Dean, Gil, and Sammy, with me.”
“Yes, sir,” the boys all chorused, and everyone rushed to put on coats and leave, all piling into the waiting cars at the same time.
But rather than leaving at once, Mr. Winchester waited until Pastor Murphy had driven away before turning around to look at the three boys in the back seat. “One thing you should know, boys.”
“Is this a hunt, sir?” Dean asked. A few months ago, he might have been less direct, but Sammy had found Mr. Winchester’s journal while their dads had been gone before Christmas, and as a result, Gil had also found out what they did.
“It is,” Mr. Winchester replied. “Near as we can figure, anyway. Uncle Bobby’s meeting us there, too. The girl’s Sammy’s age; she’s the victim. I want you three to find out what you can from her while we talk with her parents.”
“Yes, sir,” the boys chorused.
Mr. Winchester nodded and backed out of the parking space.
“Are Tarvek and Vi going to live with Pastor Jim?” Sammy asked.
“Probably,” Mr. Winchester answered. “Nothing’s set yet. That’s what they’re going to talk about. We also think Tarvek’s dad might have something to do with what’s happening to Agatha, although we’re not really sure yet. That’s why I want you boys to talk to her first.”
“Okay. I mean, yes, sir.”
“Oh, and just so you know, Mr. Clay is mute. He can hear, but he talks through Sign.”
“Good thing we learned Sign at Pastor Jim’s church last summer,” Dean said. “Gil, do you....”
“Dad taught me,” Gil replied. “There’ve been times when we needed it, if he thought our room might be bugged or something. He said he learned from Mr. Clay.”
“Awesome. We should practice sometime.”
“Yeah, sure!”
They didn’t say much else on the short trip to the Clays’ house, which was two stories tall and had a two-car garage. It was a pretty house, with blue siding, white trim, and a metal roof, and the front lawn and flower beds were neatly manicured. Still, something felt off from the moment the Winchesters’ car turned onto the Clays’ street, and that feeling only got stronger as Mr. Winchester parked in the driveway and led the boys up to the front door. Sammy started squirming as they walked and kept looking worriedly up at Dean, but Dean didn’t seem to notice. So Gil tapped Sammy’s shoulder and nodded when Sammy looked at him. Sammy relaxed a little, understanding that it wasn’t just him, but didn’t look any less worried as Mr. Winchester knocked on the door.
A tall brunette lady—maybe as tall as Dad!—answered the door and smiled welcomingly. “You must be Mr. Winchester,” she said, shaking hands.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Winchester replied. “My sons Dean and Sammy, and Klaus’ son Gil.”
Mrs. Clay shook hands with each boy but chuckled when she got to Gil. “I’d know whose you were a mile off, Gil. You favor your grandmother.”
Gil didn’t know what to say to that, so he just smiled.
“Do come in,” Mrs. Clay continued and stepped back to let them into the front hall. “Agatha, dear?”
A blonde girl with big round glasses and a wild cowlick came out of the room to their right, looking like she didn’t feel very well. And Gil suddenly felt light-headed. Here was the focus of the wrongness, for sure, but the wrongness was trying to suppress something else about her that Gil couldn’t put his finger on but that made his heart race.
“Here are the boys Uncle Klaus wanted you to meet,” Mrs. Clay told her. “This is Dean, Sammy, and Gil. Boys, this is Agatha.”
“Hi,” said Dean, shaking hands.
“That’s a pretty name,” said Sammy, earning a smile.
“Hi,” said Gil, extending his hand. “Nice to me—”
He broke off briefly as she took his hand because he felt a jolt of something—not static electricity; deeper and stronger and indefinable, wonderful and scary all at once—pass between them as if they had just closed the switch on a circuit. He’d shaken hands with a lot of people in his life, but never had he felt anything like that before. Her eyes widened at the same time, and he could tell she felt it, too.
“—eet you,” he finished, hoping he didn’t sound as breathless as he felt.
“Uh,” she replied and snatched her hand away. “Hi.”
Mrs. Clay put her hand on Agatha’s back. “Why don’t you and the boys go in the living room to visit while Dad and I chat with Uncle Klaus and his friends?”
“’Kay,” Agatha said and rubbed at her forehead. “In here,” she told the boys, looking mostly at Gil, and pointed into the room she’d just come from.
“Are you okay?” Gil asked, not quite sure what he meant, as the four of them went into the living room and Mr. Winchester followed Mrs. Clay deeper into the house.
“I get these headaches,” Agatha explained and sat gingerly on the couch. “Today’s not quite so bad, but it’s still bad enough. Sorry,” she added.
“What are you sorry for?” Dean returned, plopping down in one of the recliners as Sammy sat on the loveseat and Gil hesitated, unsure where to sit. “It’s not your fault. Not like you can plan headaches, even if you’d known we were coming.”
“I know, but you came to see me, and I feel like I’m being a bad hostess. It’s an awful first impression.”
That made up Gil’s mind. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said, sitting down on the other end of the couch. (He couldn’t pull her into a comforting hug. He’d just met her.) “Mr. Winchester warned us you might not be feeling too good.”
She smiled at him, but it didn’t ease the pain lines around her eyes. “Thanks.”
“That’s a pretty necklace,” Sammy remarked, pointing to—huh. Now that he looked at it, Gil couldn’t really see the gold pendant Agatha was wearing, even though he’d noticed it before they’d shaken hands. At this angle, there was some sort of black fog around it.
Agatha reached up and played with the pendant like she was nervous. “Thanks. My parents gave it to me for my birthday last year. It was my mother’s—my birth mother’s, I mean. It’s a locket, actually, has their picture in it. Only one I have, really.”
Dean frowned. “You’re adopted?”
Agatha nodded. “My birth parents were killed the same day I was born. My uncle didn’t think he could take care of me, so Mom and Dad adopted me. They already had a daughter; her name’s Maxinia. She’s all grown up and married now. They live in Omaha. And she’s gonna have a baby soon!”
“Oh, awesome!”
“Not that I care,” Agatha continued in a louder, harsher, much older tone and with a snooty expression, and the darkness around the locket pulsed. “It’s not like I ever see them anyway.”
The boys exchanged a look.
The snooty expression vanished into confusion, and Agatha blinked. “Um. Did... did I say something mean?”
“Yeah, kind of,” Dean answered. “Not super mean, but a little.”
Agatha groaned and rubbed her forehead again. “This keeps happening. Sometimes I black out a little; sometimes I just hear myself saying something, and... and it’s not me saying it. It’s really scary.”
“I bet,” Gil said carefully. “When did this start?”
“Last year.”
“Was it before or after your birthday?”
“Um... a few weeks after. Can’t remember for sure. The headaches started first. I’ve been to all kinds of doctors, but they can’t find anything wrong.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed. “That’s interesting.”
Sammy hummed thoughtfully and turned to Dean. “I wonder if it’s that dis—discosiative—”
“Dissociative identity disorder? You mean like multiple personalities?”
“HA!” Agatha cried in that other voice, and the darkness flared up even more. “What does a child know about psychology?” Then the darkness subsided again, and she blinked and buried her face in her hands with a groan.
“Yahtzee!” Sammy breathed and looked at Gil. “Did you—”
Gil nodded. “Yeah. It’s the locket.”
Dean frowned and looked from his brother to Gil and back again. “O-kay. But we’re gonna need a better way to prove that to Dad than just your say-so.”
Agatha tried to hum thoughtfully, but the darkness flared again, and she broke off with a cry of pain and clutched at her head.
“What about an EMF meter?” Gil suggested. “Isn’t that what they use on all the ghost-hunting shows?”
“Yeah,” Dean replied, “but I don’t think Dad has one.”
“Could we make one?”
Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “Maybe. But where—”
“Da—Da—Daddy’s got a workbench,” Agatha gasped. “In the garage. Has... some ele-... electronics stuff. Owwwww....”
Nuts to everything, Gil thought and slid over to put an arm around her shoulders. “Do you think you can walk?”
She nodded slightly. “If you guy—guys can he—help me, I can... I can show you.”
Sammy jumped up and ran over as Gil let her grip his free hand and did his best to ignore the head rush that followed. As they stood, Sammy pulled her free arm around his shoulders and put a steadying arm around her waist.
Dean stood, too, and went ahead of them to the hall. “Which way?”
“Kitchen,” Agatha panted. “Straight back... then right.”
Sammy and Gil tried to help her to walk, but another pain spike nearly sent her to the ground. So Gil scooped her up and carried her out after Dean and Sammy, past what was probably the dining room—he could hear the adults talking, but they didn’t seem to notice what the kids were doing—and into the spacious kitchen. Dean tried one door that turned out to be the pantry, another that went to the laundry room, and finally the door that clearly led to the garage. Sammy ran through first and found a shop heater to switch on.
“Are either of these cars unlocked?” Gil asked Agatha as he followed Sammy.
“Nuh,” Agatha answered. “But there’s... there’s some lawn chairs....”
“I spy,” said Dean and went to get two of them. He set them up close to the heater, but not too close, and Gil eased Agatha into one of them while Sammy sat down in the other.
“Anything else we need before we get started?” Gil asked the group at large.
Dean had grabbed a stepstool and was investigating the upper cabinets of Mr. Clay’s work area. “Everything’s labeled,” he reported. “Think we’re good to go.”
“Awesome.” Gil went to the workbench and grabbed two pairs of safety glasses from a bin as Dean climbed down with a handful of equipment. “Have you ever done this before?”
“No. You?”
“Never.”
Gil handed Dean a pair of glasses. Dean handed Gil a soldering iron.
“You ready?” Dean asked, grinning.
Gil grinned back. “Let’s rock.”
“I mean, it happens to all of us, doesn’t it?” Judy said. “You open your mouth, and your mother comes out, or your father. But Agatha never knew Lucrezia. She and Bill killed each other the day Agatha was born. Granted, she does favor Lucrezia in looks, and her voice is very similar to Lucrezia’s, but... in personality, she’s pretty much a cross between Bill and Barry. I had never heard her say anything that sounded like what Lucrezia would say until all this started.”
And she swears not her, Adam added.
Nodding, Judy interpreted that for Bobby. “She’s always very embarrassed when it happens, and it’s usually when she’s fighting a headache anyway.”
“You say Barry mentioned Lucrezia referring to Agatha as a vessel,” John noted. “Did he say anything about strange events the night she turned six months old?”
Adam and Judy exchanged a look. “Not that I remember,” Judy answered, and Adam shook his head. “What sort of strange events?”
“Anything. Lights flickering; sulfur in her bedroom; cattle mutilations; house fire.”
“House fire?!”
“Just examples,” Bobby interjected, giving John a warning glare.
“I think Barry would have said something about that,” Klaus said drily.
More worried about self, Adam signed. Thought cursed.
“Cursed? In what sense?”
“He said he felt like there was something odd in his blood, like some kind of power,” Judy answered. “He was very worried that he’d lose control and accidentally hurt Agatha. He didn’t tell us anything specific... although now that you mention it, the lights do flicker sometimes when Agatha’s headaches are worst.”
John frowned; he’d never heard of anyone older than Sammy dealing with that sort of problem before. But before he could ask anything more, Jim finally arrived with Tarvek and Violetta and returned Klaus’ room key, which he’d borrowed so they could go back and get the kids’ bags if needed. After the usual round of introductions, Judy started to send the new kids into the living room, only to find that Agatha and the boys were gone. Nor were they across the hall in what looked like a piano studio.
“Huh,” Judy said, looking around. “I wonder where—”
Suddenly there was a scream from the garage.
“GIL!” Klaus cried.
Everyone charged back toward the kitchen, only to be met by Dean running in with what looked like a Walkman with an antenna, which brought them to a halt. “Dad, there’s something wrong with Agatha’s locket,” he said urgently and brandished his gadget. “It’s generating EMF, and we tried to take it off of her, but it won’t let us.”
“You mean the clasp is stuck?” John asked.
“No, I mean it won’t let us. I can’t even get close to it. Sammy can, but he can’t touch it. Gil got hold of the clasp, but when he tried to open it, it shocked him. And Agatha keeps chanting it’s hers, like... like... like Gollum with the Ring!”
“Curse box,” Bobby said and ran out to the Chevelle.
“When you say you can’t get close,” Jim pressed, “do you mean a force field, or....”
Dean grimaced. “No, it’s... this really strong thought that the locket has to stay on.”
Tarvek gulped audibly.
Klaus rounded on him. “What did your father want with Agatha? What was he trying to do?”
Tarvek quailed but answered, “T-t-to bring Lucrezia back!”
Judy gasped. Adam and Jim stared. Klaus looked like thunder.
And then from the garage came a feminine “Aaaaroooon....”
The color drained from Tarvek’s face. “Oh, no.”
Agatha giggled. “I heeear you, Aaaaarooon.”
Tarvek’s eyes glazed over. Alarmed, Violetta tried to grab his arm, but he dodged her.
“I’m waaaaitiiiiiing.” Another giggle. “Aaaaaaaaarooooooon....”
Breathing hard, Tarvek started toward the garage as if fighting against every motion, yet deftly avoided any adult attempt to stop him. About the time he crossed the threshold, Bobby came back in with the curse box and followed Tarvek into the garage. Klaus, John, and Dean followed Bobby, and everyone else crowded in behind them.
In the garage, Gil was sprawled on the floor behind a pair of lawn chairs, and Sammy was sitting next to him, apparently monitoring his pulse. Agatha was sitting in one of the lawn chairs in a pose that was totally wrong for a nine-year-old, with a wicked grin on her face as she beckoned Tarvek nearer. And Tarvek, twitching and shuffling, kept heading toward her as if drawn by a tractor beam.
“Yeeessss,” Agatha said. “Thaaat’s it, darling. Closer... cloooseeer....”
Tarvek finally lurched to a stop in front of her chair. Then, still moving slowly and jerkily, he raised a hand and reached for the locket.
“Yes... yes... you know what to do, my darling... say it... say it....”
Tarvek’s hand closed around the locket, and he hesitated for the space of two harsh pants—and then, with a sudden snarl of “Go to hell, witch!” yanked the pendant off the chain and hurled it into the curse box, which Bobby slammed shut. And the tension in the air vanished.
“Three-pointer!” Gil cheered and sat up.
“Mommy!” Agatha wailed and ran into Judy’s waiting arms.
Violetta passed her, going the other way. “Don’t DO that to me!” she cried, kicking Tarvek’s shins repeatedly and making him yelp in pain.
As Jim pulled her away and Klaus pushed past to check on Gil, Bobby went over to put a hand on Tarvek’s shoulder. “You’re a damn fine actor, boy. Almost had me fooled for a sec.”
Tarvek smiled ruefully. “Thank you, sir.”
“I should have remembered,” John agreed. “You’ve got a hex bag, haven’t you?”
Tarvek nodded and pulled the top of the leather pouch out of his shirt. “I knew Lucrezia wouldn’t know I had it, but I couldn’t tell whether she was expecting my father or if she knew it was me and thought I was under thrall. My given name is Aaron Travis; Tarvek’s a family nickname Dyedushka gave me.”
“And how did you know it was her?”
Tarvek looked back toward the door, apparently checking to make sure Agatha was out of earshot, and sat down in one of the lawn chairs with a sigh. “Long, weird combination of things, really. I recognized her voice because... one time, when I was little, I woke up thirsty one night, but I wasn’t supposed to wake my nanny or buzz for a servant after bedtime. So I went downstairs to try to get a glass of milk or something from the kitchen, and... there was Father with this woman. Lucrezia. She was backed up against the wall, and he was....” He grimaced. “He was all over her, even though she was really pregnant. But I remember she had that locket on; I noticed it because it caught the light when Father’s head wasn’t in the way. And she said something I couldn’t really hear well, but it was something along the lines of always coming back to him, even if she died. I... decided I didn’t really need a glass of milk after all and went back upstairs, so I didn’t hear a lot more than that. At least, not then. Then we found out that Lucrezia did die, and Father—I think he was drunk for a month. I can’t really remember now. Mother took us to Russia for a while and made sure I stayed in the nursery for a long time after we came back.”
“But she wasn’t as cautious with Anevka,” Klaus noted.
“Anevka was ten years older than I am. And Mother was gone a lot. The only reason Father married her in the first place was that Lucrezia was married to someone else and he needed Dyedushka’s goodwill. The night it... it happened... like I said, Father was really high, and he was the first to admit it afterward. He told me once he’d thought Anevka had the gift of being a medium and had her channel Lucrezia, only when she manifested, the ectoplasm was generated from Anevka’s body, and when Father tried to make out with the ghost, it harmed Anevka. But I think he just got that idea from a story I read once.* I think maybe he was so high he thought Anevka was Lucrezia and... just... went too far.”
“Ewwwwww!” said Violetta, making a face.
“Did he try with anyone else?” Jim asked.
“Oh, yes.” Tarvek ran a hand over his face. “After Mother died, he kept this... this harem of strawberry blondes in one of the guest houses. And every so often, especially when a new shipment of drugs came in, he’d... I-I don’t know details. If he sacrificed them, tried to summon her ghost into them, I don’t know. That’s one of the few things he never got around to telling me. All I know for sure is that a woman would come in the main house at night, and a body bag went in the river in the morning.”
Jim crossed himself and shook his head.
“You keep saying your dad told you stuff,” Gil said. “Was this, like, over dinner?!”
Tarvek shook his head. “No, no, just the last year or so, whenever he’d make me try to find Agatha. He did try to scry for her, but none of the tracking spells worked. I don’t know why. What usually happened was that he’d start out looking over my shoulder, but as slow as Gopher is, he’d get bored and go off to get drunk, high, or both. Sometimes he wouldn’t come back, which was good. But when he did come back, he wouldn’t watch what I was doing; he would just... start telling me things about Lucrezia, things I really never needed to know. I guess he was trying to justify what he was doing. The last time, though, I did ask him at the start why he was so anxious to find this girl, and he said he thought she might have something on her, like that locket, that he could use to bring Lucrezia back through her. I don’t know if he meant possession or what.”
“Whoever heard of a witch who really died?” Sammy quoted from Prince Caspian. “You can always get them back.”
“Not if we can help it,” Bobby growled.
“Indeed,” Jim agreed. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to bring back a woman capable of that!”
“Just one thing, Uncle Bobby,” Dean said. “Agatha says that’s the only picture of her birth parents she has.”
Bobby nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I’ll see what I can find out. If there’s some way to lift whatever this curse is, I’ll do it for her. Cain’t promise, though.”
At that, Sammy ran over to give Bobby a hug. “You’re the best, Uncle Bobby.”
“Well,” said Klaus, helping Gil to his feet. “If anyone has any appetite left, I vote we go get some lunch.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” John agreed, looking at Dean, and Dean nodded.
Tarvek looked a little green at the idea, but Jim said, “We already ate. And I think it’s time we were on our way. Don’t you, Violetta?”
“Yeah,” Violetta agreed. “If Uncle Aaron’s people haven’t figured out yet that we’ve left the state, Dyedushka’s might have. The sooner we get away from Agatha, the better for her.”
Tarvek nodded. “And I don’t know what commands Father might have given his people in the event of his death. I mean, he knew his deal was coming due soon, but I don’t know if he’d put plans in place this far ahead.”
Dean shivered. “Talking about people like they were robots, man... it’s freaky.”
“Yeah, well, that’s thrall for you,” Tarvek sighed and stood up. “And the sad thing is, if Mother hadn’t insisted on putting me in public school for a couple of years, I might not even have known that was what was going on. I don’t think I’d ever realized that it was normal for people to be able to disobey until I got to school and the other kids just... wouldn’t listen to the teacher.”
Nobody really knew what to say to that, so Jim just put a hand on Tarvek’s shoulder and said, “Let’s go, son.”
Tarvek nodded, and everyone followed them back toward the kitchen.
“Oh, Singer,” John said, stopping Bobby. “Since we’re this close to Lawrence, why not take that to Missouri, see what she can learn from it?”
Bobby hummed thoughtfully and nodded. “Was gonna take it to a friend of mine in Pontiac, but you’re right, Lawrence is closer.”
“Pontiac, Illinois?”
“Yeah.”
“We came that way. Roads are terrible.” John censored himself more for Violetta’s sake than for the boys’, even though she’d just gone inside. “Especially in Iowa.”
“Good to know. Thanks.”
When they walked back into the kitchen, Adam and a damp-faced Agatha were sitting at the table in the breakfast room with big mugs of what smelled like hot chocolate, and Tarvek was awkwardly trying to say goodbye. “I’m really sorry we met like this,” he was saying.
Agatha sniffled. “I don’t really remember what happened, but Daddy says you were very brave. Thank you.”
Tarvek ducked his head, blushing a little. “I just couldn’t let her do that to you. Can we still be friends?”
Agatha nodded, smiling shyly.
“Me, too?” Violetta asked.
Agatha’s smile grew. “Sure, I’d like that.”
“YAY!”
“Agatha?” Judy called, coming downstairs with a small jewelry box with a bow on it.
Agatha sniffled again. “Yes, ma’am?”
Hunters and kids made way for Judy as she came into the breakfast room. “Dad and I were saving this until you were a little older,” she began, “but if you promise to be careful with it, we think you should have it now.”
“I promise!”
Judy handed her the box, and Agatha opened it to reveal a small leather pouch that looked like a hex bag. Gil and Tarvek both gasped.
“This was your father’s,” Judy explained when Agatha looked at her in confusion. “And if I’m not mistaken, your Grandma Teodora gave it to him when he was very small, to help protect him when they were escaping from the Nazis.”
The kids all oohed and ahhed.
“No wonder my father could never find you,” Tarvek said. “He only tried at night, when you were home and this was shielding you.”
Gil nodded, staring at the bag. “That is... that is neat.”
Dean looked at Gil, eyebrow raised. “Major mojo, huh?”
“Oh, yeah. The good kind.”
Agatha gingerly picked up the bag and turned it over in her hand.
“Don’t take it apart,” Tarvek cautioned. “Whatever’s in there needs to stay there. Otherwise it won’t work.”
Agatha nodded. “Thanks. What’s this?” she added, running her finger over a design tooled in the leather.
“I don’t know, dear,” Judy admitted. “Anyone?”
Agatha held it up for general inspection—and John’s heart almost stopped. He’d seen that six-pointed star before.
When Bobby, Jim, and Tarvek all shook their heads, John cleared his throat. “My father used to have a tie tack with that on it. And my... my wife had a charm bracelet with all kinds of... protective symbols, I guess. She stopped wearing it after we got married. Anyway, that was one of the charms on it.”
“Either of ’em say what it was?” Bobby asked.
John shook his head. “Asked Pops, and he... he said he’d tell me when I was older. That was the night he disappeared, in ’58.”
Judy blinked. “Don’t tell me you’re—you’re Cousin Millie’s son?!”
John frowned. “Wait, you’re....”
“Wright. Judy Wright. My mother and yours were first cousins!”
“Wright....” Now that John thought about it, he did vaguely remember getting Christmas cards from the Wrights in Mechanicsburg, and Judy’s voice was somewhat familiar, too. “Did... did you and your mom come out that next summer to help us move to Lawrence?”
“Mom did. I had basketball camp.”
“That’s right. I remember now. Man... small world!”
Agatha’s eyes went wide, and she turned to Sammy. “Does that mean we’re cousins?”
“I guess, sorta,” Sammy replied, grinning.
“Awesome!”
And on that much happier note, Jim and Bobby took their leave, and Sammy and Gil sat down to chatter with Agatha while John and Klaus signed with Adam and Dean helped Judy start lunch.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Gil asked Agatha late that afternoon while everyone else was busy elsewhere.
Agatha nodded. “I haven’t had a headache since Tarvek took the locket off. And the weird thing is, I don’t know why I never took it off before.”
“That might have been part of the curse. Tarvek said his dad thought your mother wanted to use you to resurrect herself, and if she was... I dunno, haunting the locket or something, she wouldn’t want you to take it off.”
She shivered. “Now I know why my parents don’t talk about her much.”
“Yeah.”
“So, um... you’re not... staying in town, are you? I mean, moving here?”
He shook his head. “No. I’d kinda like to, but I don’t really get a vote.”
“Oh.” She looked disappointed for a moment but then asked, “You wanna be pen pals?”
His heart skipped a beat. “Sure. I’ve never had a pen pal before.”
“Really? Don’t your friends ever write to you?”
“Never really had friends, except Sammy and Dean.” When her jaw dropped, he added, “Well, Dad has me homeschooling ’cause we move so much. And there’s been some weird... stuff with paperwork I don’t really understand, although I think Mr. Winchester said Mr. Singer might be able to help us with it.”
“Well, you have a friend now,” she declared and kissed his cheek.
He was still trying to recover enough to figure out how to respond when Mrs. Clay called everyone into the kitchen to hear a call from Mr. Singer, which Mr. Winchester was just switching to speakerphone on the kitchen extension.
“All right, you’re on speaker,” Mr. Winchester announced.
“Bad news,” Mr. Singer began. “Seems Lucrezia was into some hardcore necromancy, set the spell with her own blood and her dying breath. It can’t be broken.”
“She is one mad mama,” added a lady’s voice. “That poor boy’d be a heap o’ ashes if this curse box weren’t so strong.”
“Kudos to Tarvek, then,” Dad said. “So what’s the bottom line? Can the picture be saved?”
“No chance,” Mr. Singer said regretfully. “Hate to say this, Miss Agatha, but the only safe thing to do with this locket is to burn it. But I won’t do that without your say-so.”
Agatha swallowed hard and took Mrs. Clay’s hand. “Is... is my mother haunting it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the lady with Mr. Singer said. “Got her soul tied into it so tight, only way she’ll let go of her own accord is to move into you.”
“But if you burn it, she can’t hold on to me anymore?”
“That’s right, baby. An’ you listen to Missouri, now—you already got a wonderful mama there, loves you like her own, ain’t never gonna hurt you. Wonderful daddy, too. An’ your father, seems like, was a real good man. This woman in here?” There was a thump, like the lady (Missouri?) was knocking on the curse box. “She might be blood, but she sure ain’t family. Those folks with you now, that’s your family.”
Agatha leaned against Mrs. Clay, took a deep breath, and said, “Burn it.”
Gil was insanely proud of her.
And it sounded like Mr. Singer was, too, when he replied, “Yes, ma’am. Good call.”
“Amen,” Missouri agreed. “God bless you, honey. You take care, now.”
“Thank you, Miss Missouri,” Agatha answered. “God bless you, too.”
Mr. Winchester hung up, and Mrs. Clay knelt and gave Agatha a big hug and let her cry a little.
“Guess we’d better head on back to the motel,” Dad said. “Zoing’s probably wondering where supper is.” When Mr. Clay signed something Gil didn’t catch, Dad glanced at Gil and added, “Well, we might stay a couple days.”
That led to a round of goodbyes and hugs from everyone, including Agatha, which left Gil dizzy. And then they piled into the Impala, got fried chicken to go, and went back to the motel. They ate in the Winchesters’ room, but Gil ate as fast as he could and then pled exhaustion, fed Zoing, and went straight to bed before anyone else was finished.
He couldn’t have a crush on Agatha. He couldn’t. She was nine—she was a kid still! What was going on?!
Suddenly, Zoing tapped on the wall of his tank to get Gil’s attention.
“What?”
Ugettagurl? Zoing asked.
“Oh, shut up,” Gil groaned, rolled over on his stomach, and pulled the pillow over his head.
“It’s not FAIR!” Lucrezia bawled. “Everything was PERFECT!”
“Now, now,” Alastair soothed, petting her head. “Azazel warned you nothing could be guaranteed without a deal. But perhaps you’re closer to your goal this way than you think.”
“Oh, please, please, I’ll do anything!”
“In due time, poppet. In due time. But there are certain procedures that have to be followed. After all....”
She gasped loudly as a thousand white-hot knives impaled her spectral form.
“... you are in Hell.”
* Said story is “The Last Séance” by Agatha Christie. It is super creepy.
