“If you have a suggestion, we’re all eager to hear it,” Marjorie said.
An angry silence settled over the room. No one was happy. It was just different levels of dislike.
“I think you’re approaching this the wrong way,” Meredith said, sitting at the edge of her cushion. All eyes, living and dead, turned toward her. “We can get him to agree, but it’s all how you sell it.”
Chapter Eight
Slate’s hand cramped and he set down the chalk to flex his fingers. Even with help from his father and Morten, it had taken longer than Slate expected. As a kid, Slate played down here, but barely paid attention to the white marks on the stone he’d occasionally seen. It explained why his father insisted they use the basement for this summoning.
Dash worked with his grandfather, changing the symbols to match the ones in the old ERP book. Once each cardinal point was correct, Dash placed a candle just outside the lines.
Across the room, Clifford stood at a table putting sigils on a piece of paper. It was a copy of Gary’s obituary from his hometown paper. The picture below the “Local Man Dies in Tragic Accident on His Way to a Music Festival” headline was very different from the Gary they’d met. In the photo, Gary Torrente was forever twenty-three, smiling, and looking like a young professional from the end of the 1960s.
His father stepped through the last open space, set the paper in the center, and placed a small weight to keep it in place. When Clifford was outside the circle, Dash connected the lines.
“That should do it,” Morten said, helping Dash to his feet. “The binding will hold as long as the circle remains intact.”
“Can Gary disrupt the lines from inside?” Dash asked, wiping chalk dust from his hands.
“No.” Morten handed his grandson a box of matches. “No spirit can. Only another medium can break the containment.”
Slate hadn’t felt the presence of any ghosts, but he suspected they were steering clear of the area. The circle spanned eight feet. Slate had wanted to make it smaller, but Morten rejected that idea. Evidently, it should ideally be larger, and this was the minimum size for such a summoning. Scanning the floor, the remnants of another circle extended well beyond the new lines.
Dash came over, still wiping white powder from his hands. There was a spot on his cheek, and Slate instinctively brushed it off.
“Thanks,” Dash said. He lacked his usual cheerful demeanor. Of course, this was a somber moment, so his mood matched the circumstances. “What if he refuses the ballroom idea?”
They’d avoided this conversation ever since Meredith suggested the idea. Slate still didn’t want to discuss it, but they needed a contingency plan. “We give him time to think it over.”
“Not to be negative, but won’t keeping him bound while we ‘give him time to think it over’ only make him angrier?” Dash asked. “I think if he doesn’t agree, we need to be prepared to move on, not give him time to reflect on all the ways we wronged him.”
Slate knew that binding Gary long term wasn’t a viable option. If he got free, the amount of bedlam an angry ghost could cause wasn’t worth the risk. Banishment was the only option if Gary wouldn’t listen to reason.
“One step at a time,” Morten said. “Let’s see if he’ll listen to reason first. He’s not an evil spirit, just a bit light on responsibility.”
Morten’s response earned him a grateful smile from Slate. It also put the brakes on the ‘would they really banish Gary’discussion. The struggle for Slate was—he sympathized with Gary. His great-grandmother would’ve too. It was hard to impose the nuclear punishment on a spirit who died just before he got to live the life he wanted. Slate admired Gary for never ‘living’ that life after he died. The absolute last thing he wanted, was to banish Gary, because as far as anyone knew, banishment was not a pleasant option.
Clifford squeezed Slate’s shoulder and spun him around so they could speak face to face. “The two of you have got this. Your mother and I will be upstairs with Morten and Millicent if you need us.”
Morten and Clifford’s footsteps echoed off the stone walls as they disappeared up the stairs. The basement door closing made the silence heavier. Dash’s fingers slipped between his, and the mood lightened. Just a little.
“Lay it out for him.” Dash kissed Slate’s cheek. “You are utterly charming when you try. I should know. I was content to avoid commitment, but you charmed the fear out of me.”
It wasn’t an exact retelling of history, but it was sweet that Dash remembered things that way. “As inspirational pep talks go, I’ll give it a six, but most of that is because it came from your heart.”
“Whatever it takes.” Dash snuck in another kiss before walking around the circle.
A binding spell was easier than creating the portal, but emotionally it was harder for Slate.
“Ready?” Slate asked.
Dash nodded.
Slate took a breath and centered himself. He was there to support Dash in creating the energy to summon Gary. Objectively, Dash had the harder job. All Slate had to do was talk to Gary.
Right. Because convincing a stoner-bro ghost that just having fun was somehow a danger to hundreds of unknown spirits—most of whom hadn’t died yet.
He closed his eyes and reached for the connection between the living world and the realm beyond. After years of practice, he tapped into it quickly. A second later, he linked with Dash. Touching Dash’s power was like merging their souls.
