The Invited(103)

“You sound just like Nate,” Helen snorted.

“It’s like…you’re opening a door,” Riley said.

“Yes!” Helen said. “That’s exactly the point.”

“But when you open a door, who knows who or what you might be letting in,” Riley said. “Not to mention the fact that you’re really pissing your husband off. And worrying him.”

“Huh?”

“He called me at the shop this morning.”

“Really? What did he say?”

“He thinks your interest in Hattie and her family and all these objects is a bit…unhealthy. He asked me to please stop helping you with it—and he definitely doesn’t want me to take you back to Dicky’s any time soon. I heard all about how Dicky came by with your phone and told Nate about our visit there.”

    “Yeah. Nate was pretty pissed,” Helen said.

Riley nodded. “But it’s not just that he’s mad, Helen. He’s worried you’re losing your grasp on reality.”

“And do you agree with him? Do you think I’ve gone round the bend?”

“I think…” Riley paused. “…that it’s a dangerous game you’re playing. Blurring the lines between the past and present, the dead and the living.”

“I hear what you’re saying, but all I can say is that I’ve never felt so strongly compelled to do something. And I can’t do it without you. Will you help me?”

There was a long pause.

“Of course,” Riley said at last. “What is it you need?”

“There’s only so much I can find myself online, especially with Nate looking over my shoulder all the time. Maybe if we both go back to the historical society and search through all the databases you guys have access to there, use the microfiche reader to go through old newspapers, search through all the birth, death, and marriage records, you can help me put together a solid family tree for Hattie. Try to track down who Gloria and Jason went to live with and what happened to them.”

“Okay,” Riley said. “I know Mary Ann’s been reorganizing things in there since she got back from North Carolina. I think she’s pretty much got the place put back together—and there’s even a new computer. I’m working tomorrow, but I’m free the day after. Monday. We’ll get in there and see what we can find.”





CHAPTER 36



Olive





SEPTEMBER 12, 2015

Olive studied the books Helen had let her borrow—the library books she’d been reading up at the new house and a couple more Helen had down in the trailer.

“Just don’t take anything in the books too seriously,” Helen had warned.

“I totally get it,” Olive assured her. “And don’t worry, I’m not going to start trying to do spells or conjure demons or anything. I just find all of it interesting, you know? Reading what other people believe.”

In one of the library books, Olive found a whole chapter on communicating with the dead by using a pendulum. It said a spirit could help you find lost objects using a pendulum. Also answer divination questions. The book suggested making a chart with possible answers to questions you have and then asking the spirit to point the pendulum to the correct answer.

Olive was flipping through one of the books on witchcraft when she came across a section on magic symbols.

She actually gasped, like some stupid girl in a horror movie.

There, on the page, was a design that was nearly identical to Mama’s necklace: a circle with a triangle inside it, and inside that, a square with another circle in it. Olive read the words below it:

    Squaring the circle is an important symbol used in ancient alchemy. To square a circle was thought to be an impossible task, uniting shapes that are not meant to come together. The circle represents the spirit world; the square, the physical world with its four elements. Some believe the triangle represents a door in which the dead, or possibly even demons, can walk through.



“Holy shit,” Olive said.

A door the dead (or demons) can walk through.

She thought of the symbol chalked on the floor of Dicky’s hotel. Was that what they’d been doing there? Trying to open an actual door to the spirit world?

And what if they’d succeeded?

Who, or what, might have come through?

“Ollie?” Daddy came into the living room in his work clothes.

Olive jumped.

“I’ve gotta go to work. Break in the water main over by the high school. Getting time and a half, though,” he said with a wink.

“Okay,” she said.

“What’re you reading?” he asked, looking down at the books. “Something for school?”

“Not exactly,” she said.

He scowled when he saw the titles.

“Where did these come from?” he asked, weirdly angry all of a sudden. His jaw was clenched and he was breathing through his nose like an angry bull. “Did Riley give them to you?”

“Aunt Riley? No,” she said. Olive thought. She didn’t want to get Helen in trouble. “I borrowed them. From the library. See?” She turned the book on its side so he could see the sticker on the spine with the call number on it.