“Authorities don’t work that way,” Samantha said, stepping on some crunchy leaves. “Now, you said it’s just up ahead?”
Katie floated down toward me. “See, I told you she was the right person to help us.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said. “It’s in the clearing up ahead.”
But I didn’t need to tell her. By the time I caught up to her I could tell that she saw the hole to the Dark Place. Her eyes were wide as saucers, watching the blue flames dance in and out of the hole, which had grown to the size of the clearing now.
“You see it, right?” I asked.
“I see everything,” Samantha said, nodding. She didn’t take her eyes off the Dark Place. “It’s beautiful and haunting all at once.”
Katie floated in front of Samantha. Her dull blue turned into an electric neon as she closed her eyes and hummed to herself. When she opened her eyes, a burst of light exploded in front of us and both Samantha and I fell backwards to avoid it.
“Hi, Samantha,” Katie said, waving at her.
Samantha looked up, blinked a few times, then waved back. “Hi.”
Katie’s face was grim. “We have a lot of work to do. I hope you can help us.”
“I’ll try,” Samantha said. “If there’s anything I can do to help you, I’ll try to do it.”
“Excellent,” Katie said. “Because, honestly, we’re lost, and can use all the help we can get.”
Chapter 18
“I have a confession to make,” Samantha said. We were walking out of the woods. “I’m kind of a witch. That’s how I knew so much about ghosts, and why I knew you were talking to one.”
“Ah,” Katie said, floating next to her. “Well, I’m a ghost, so that doesn’t surprise me.”
“That wasn’t my confession,” Samantha said. “My confession is that I always thought it was a bit of hokum, magic and all. We talked about it a lot when I was in Germany, but I’ve never seen it myself.”
“If you thought it was bunk, why did you get into it?”
Samantha shrugged. “I don’t know. It made me feel better after my dad’s death. The more I learned about death, the less I feared it, and the more I learned about witchcraft, the more powerful I felt, even if deep down I thought it was all bunk. But this…it’s like being smacked in the face with proof that magic exists.”
“I thought it was bunk, too,” I replied, leading from the front, “until I saw Katie and the hole to the Dark Place. Although saying this proves that magic exists is a bit much, don’t you think?”
Samantha turned to Katie without breaking her gait. “Are you kidding me? Souls are the best magic, and Katie’s ghost proves all the rest of it is true, at least to some extent.”
“I don’t know about that one,” Katie said. “We spent a lot of time researching ghosts and such, and we couldn’t find anything that connected it to magic.”
Samantha arched her eyebrow. “That’s because you didn’t know where to look.”
“Well, that’s obvious. I didn’t even know witches were a real thing until like, three minutes ago.” I stepped onto the asphalt of the street. “I mean, I guess some people in school are Wiccan, but they don’t practice real magic.”
“Luckily, you have me now so I can lead you to the truth about magic,” Samantha said. “Man, you made a really good decision, bringing me in, whichever one of you decided to do it.”
“It was me,” Katie said.
Samantha smiled. “I knew that, somehow. Probably since Anna hated me.”
“Anna didn’t hate you. She’s just scared to let anybody into her life. Isn’t that right, Banana?”
“Banana?” Samantha chuckled.
“You call me that, and you’re dead to me,” I grumbled. “Katie can barely get away with it, and I’ve known her almost her entire life.”
“And my entire death, too,” Katie added.
“Which is why she gets away with it,” I said. “You don’t have that luxury.”
“Whatever you say.”
Samantha drove us across town to her house. Her house was a lot smaller than ours. A small, unassuming porch led into the family room and a small kitchen.
“Mom’s room is down the hall,” she said, pointing. “I’m this way.”
Samantha pushed open the first door on the left. Inside, the room was painted black, with multiple pentagrams drawn on the wall.
“Why do you have so many pentagrams?” I asked.
“To ward off evil spirits.” She shrugged. “Stupid superstition which I guess turned out to be right in the end. I thought they looked cool.”
“Is it safe for me to come in?” Katie asked.
“Are you evil?”
“Not that I know of,” Katie replied.
“Then it should be fine.”
Katie slowly hovered into the room with her eyes closed. When she was through the threshold, she opened her eyes and relaxed her shoulders.
Samantha watched her. “Guess you’re not evil, then. Sit wherever.”
I took a seat on a purple bean bag chair in the corner while Samantha walked toward her bookshelf. She had quite a collection of cheap-looking paperbacks with a few old, leather-bound volumes mixed in as well. She knelt to the bottom shelf, where some of the thickest and oldest looking books rested.
“You have a lot of books,” I said.
“It was the only thing I shipped overseas with me. I became obsessed while I was in Germany. Mom wanted me to let it go, but I saved my money from work until I had enough to pay for them to come over myself.”
“Have you tried any spells?” Katie asked.
“Not really,” Samantha said. “A few wards and such. None of them seemed to do much of anything, though. Of course, I’m not very powerful. I’ve been working to channel my mana and build my ability well for a while now.”
“Excuse me?” Katie said.
“You only have so much energy to do magic. You burn through it, you have to recharge. The more powerful the spell, the more powerful you have to be to cast it, just like
