Before receiving his brother’s journals on magic Sam googled everything. Don’t know where a restaurant is? Google it. How do you fix a leaky faucet? Google it. Need someone’s address? Google it and maybe you will find it. Magic made it easier in some ways.
Searching for someone was easy with the use of magic. Take something they owned, attach it to a compass, say some magic words and presto blamo you have a tracking spell. Without an item they owned you had to use something else. Something that was meant to help find people.
Referencing his brother’s journal he thought about what he could use. Magic 8 balls were a no but a potential for divining answers. Bloodhounds were a no, would kill the dogs and still needed something with a smell. Google was a no, because you needed a physical object to cast the spell. After seeing an old phone booth at a gas station Sam had an idea.
Phonebooks.
The most useless item for today could be the phonebook. Sam couldn’t remember the last time he even saw one. They just weren’t used anymore. But getting one was surprisingly easy. Libraries still had them and just handed them out. Ignoring the weird stares Sam took as many as he could carry with him. His back hunched as he struggled with carrying them. You never knew when you would need a tracking spell.
The spell transfers all the stored energy in the batteries into the phonebook, igniting it. As it burned the ash would be caught in a whirlwind of magic contained in the circle of salt. While chanting the person he was searching for name he would break the circle, having the ash be pulled toward the person they were looking for. Do it three times in different locations and you can triangulate a location.
And that is how Sam and JJ found themselves in a forgotten part of Spokane’s graveyard, near dark, standing in front of a simple tombstone engraved with the words “RIP Linda Conley 1948-2012 Doting mother of Jane and William Conley Now returned to her beloved children.” On either side of her tombstones were two smaller tombstones each emblazoned with her children’s name. Billy’s had his birthdate next to the year he passed. Janey’s just had her birthdate.
With his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets he breathed slowly as his hazel eyes glazed over. His thoughts a million miles away contemplating the choices he made in life that lead him here.
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The loss of his parents at an age where he was too young to ask questions. When he was old enough to ask those questions, nobody remembered or knew what happened. His brother, Daniel, might have known what happened to their parents. If he did, he never told anyone, or wrote it down. JJ for all his knowledge and insight even claimed ignorance about the subject. Sam had so many questions about his past and no one to ask.
After months of combing through his brother’s journal on magic and the occult he stumbled upon an idea. An item that would let him conjure up his dead brother and force him to answer all of his questions. A working Ouija board.
The perfect tool to pierce the veil between the living and the dead. Not to entertain pretteens at slumber parties wanting to know if Johnny has a crush on Sally. Sadly this plan never came to fruition. Daniel was cremated, his ties to this world severed with fire. And without his body, Sam had no conduit to his brother’s spirit.
With the notes he made from his first attempt at conjuring up the dead and JJ’s help they were ready for another attempt. A class C felony, a trip to a psych ward if he is unlucky enough to be caught and a whole lot of bad juju.
With JJ as a lookout, Sam began to dig through the rick loamy earth. Worms, earwigs, and all sorts of creepy crawlies scurried out the dirt he dug up. Soil piled up around the grave the deeper he dug.
His arms burned like fire as he dug as fast as possible. Each shovel-full became heavier as he struggled to throw it out of the pit. Blisters formed on the parts of his hands not accustomed to hard labor. The tip of his shovel finally thunking dully against the coffin.
Reaching out of the pit, Sam grabbed his bag holding the tools he needed to commune with the dead. Grabbing a small hand broom from the bag, he gingerly began to clean the dirt off of the coffin until he had a spot large enough for himself and his tools.
Reaching back into his bag he grabbed a battered speak and spell toy, placing it in front of himself. Sam marveled at his own genius for a second as he looked at the toy. Instead of using an alphabet to slowly spell out answers the spirit gave, the toy would let the spirit speak to him.
With the hardest parts of the spell done, he climbed out of the grave and surrounded it with a line of salt. Then he placed 12 AA batteries along the salt line, each smeared with a drop of his blood, linking them to him. In the hand he cut he held the 13th battery, his blood making it sticky as he closed his eyes and began to speak his magic words.
“Bloody Linda.”
“BLOODY LINDA.”
“BLOODY LINDA!”