The Pumpkin Man

possession. It felt good.

“I don’t want to wake up in the morning with a pumpkin for a head,” he warned.

“I’ll ask him to use a cucumber instead.”

“Nice.”

“Just trying to be helpful.”

“To who—you or me?”

Travis looked pained. “Could we just try?” he asked again. “Please?”

Jenn nodded. “I want to do this. I want to stop this. And”—she looked at Nick—“I want to know where Kirstin is.”

Nick looked torn. “Once more,” he finally agreed.

Jenn smiled and jumped up from the couch. Opening the stone from the fireplace, she pulled out the Ouija board and planchette and turned to set them down on the coffee table.

“Not here,” Travis said. “There’s a better place.”

“Where?” Jenn asked.

“There’s . . . there’s another room in this house,” Travis said. “A room with no windows.”

“The room off the kitchen?” Jenn asked.

Travis nodded, looking surprised she knew it. “Meredith always said the wall to the other side was thinnest there.”

Nick frowned. “Maybe that’s because she was trying to talk to the Pumpkin Man, and all of the bones of his victims are right there. I don’t think that’s who we want to reach.”

Jenn shook her head wildly. “No!” she agreed.

Travis didn’t blink. “The bones from the Pumpkin Man aren’t the only bones there, and they’re probably not the most powerful. I think the reason the room is useful has more to do with the things that have happened there.”

“Such as . . . ?” Nick prompted.

“Death. Sex with virgins. Ritual bloodletting. Burials.” Travis paused and pointed at the books on the bookshelves, the ones Nick and Jenn had been reading. “When the Perenais witches needed power for their spells, they went to that room. Meredith told me as much.”

Jenn’s eye roved to the Book of Shadows. She had only had the chance to look at a small bit, but one of the themes amid its cryptic, rune-riddled pages was the importance to magic of place. She’d seen that in Meredith’s journal as well, and in some of the other books she’d skimmed in her aunt’s library. Magic was all about using symbology to tap into the power of the beyond. Symbols held power because of the truths they represented, places held power because of their stories. Spirits were drawn to both symbols and places.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Do we need candles or incense or anything?”

Travis shook his head. “Meredith lit candles, but there should still be some down there.”

CHAPTER

FORTY-NINE

Scott pulled up the one-lane road on the hill that was River’s End and stepped out of the car to open the gate. The path beyond led to the Perenais house. He’d spent a lot of time there lately. There was something about this place. Something very wrong. He knew it in his soul, though his mind still wanted to simply follow up on evidence and catch a serial killer.

He pulled up the gravel road and shut off his headlights before he got close enough for anyone in the house to notice. For a second, he felt as if he were sitting in limbo. Behind him, the soft rush of the ocean whispered. Ahead of him, the vague silhouette of the small house stood against the deep blue of the sky. The darkness of the edge of the world rushed over his car like a wave.

Scott leaned back in the cushion of his seat and took a deep breath. He didn’t know whom or what he was watching for, but he knew that tonight he had to stay awake. He had to try to protect those kids in this house from whatever might be coming to get them.

He didn’t know that he was already too late.

CHAPTER

FIFTY

Jenn led the way to the kitchen and through the pantry. Nick and Travis followed. In moments they arrived in the room of bones. Nick used a candle he’d carried from the entryway to light a couple more that were still resident in wall sconces, and then he set his flame down in the center of the floor. Finally, they all knelt and set the Ouija down between them.

Jenn sat cross-legged, and Travis, who angled himself to rest on one thigh, shook his head. “I don’t know how you can sit like that.”

“Good breeding,” she quipped. “And being a bookworm, it gives me a great area to prop my books no matter where I’m at.”

She set the planchette in the center of the board and eyed Travis, who sat to her left, then Nick, who was on her right. The coolness of the hidden room seeped up through the floor and she shivered, shimmers of light cast everywhere from the small struggling flames about the room.

As the light moved against the wall like fire ghosts, twisting and drifting in and out of focus, Jenn pushed the planchette toward Travis. “Do you want to lead? I think you have a little more experience than I do.”

He sneezed and shook his head. “I don’t know any more than you do, really. I just held the stupid ring for Meredith and tried to make my mind go blank. Which is harder than you’d think.”

“No comment,” Nick muttered.

“So, you all want me to drive this bus?” Jenn asked.

Travis nodded.

Jennica took a deep breath. “Okay. Put your fingers on the planchette and try to clear your minds. Travis, you knew Meredith, so it would probably help if you thought of her. Hard.”

The grocery clerk nodded and leaned closer to the board, squinting his eyes shut and pressing his fingers hard to the wood ring.

“Gentle touches,” Jenn reminded him. “I should barely know that anyone else is touching the planchette. Though . . . I guess I don’t really need to tell you this, Travis. You’ve apparently used this more than I have.”

She gave first Nick and then Travis a squeeze on the arm, then put her front two fingers on the planchette. “Okay,” she whispered. “Let’s talk.” She felt her blood run warm as she said it.

“Aunt Meredith,” she called out. “I know you’re near. You lived and died here, and your work continues on here. I need to talk to you. We need to talk to you. This is your Ouija board I am touching. Your witchboard. Please come to us now and advise us. I need you. We never talked much while you were alive, but I am your niece—your only remaining blood. I need you.”

Jenn paused, and she could feel the tension emanating from Nick and Travis. Each was caught up for different reasons, she supposed. Nick simply wanted this all to be over. Travis wanted . . . something else. Maybe he really did want to stop the Pumpkin Man. She hoped so.

The room had been chilly when they’d come in, but suddenly Jenn felt cold enough to see her breath. She shivered and breathed out gently, just to test, but did not see anything. Surprising.

“Meredith,” she said again. “Can you hear us? Please give us a sign.”

Jenn felt her fingers move slightly. She tried not to focus on it, because the whole point was to allow your muscles to be moved by someone else. But still, she looked down and saw the wooden ring inching across the board. It reached the left upper corner and stopped.

The ring sat atop the word YES. Around them, the candlelight flickered against the wall like the semaphore of