I take a deep breath, nodding. “Yeah, that’s an understatement. And I’d have to agree—”
“Ms. Blackwood,” he begins slowly, his eyebrows tugging down.
“Autumn,” I repeat.
His warm brown eyes lift to meet mine and he nods. “Autumn, I am concerned for your father. Do talk to him. Make sure he’s okay.”
Alarm bells suddenly ring in my head and I step forward. “Did he get hurt?”
“No, he appeared in fine condition when we spoke, but…he just seemed a bit more agitated than normal.” James shrugs, considering. “Granted, the house’s state was quite enough to be upset over.”
“Okay, of course. I’ll see if I can find him and have a word,” I say, nodding.
“Excellent,” James says, smiling. He reaches again for the mop and pulls it in close.
“Wade and I are actually here to reset some of the wards. With any luck, things will be better after today,” I say, trying to sound more sure than I feel. It’s the first time I’ve done any such spellcasting, and, in all honesty, it’s still theoretical in my mind.
“Very good,” he says, tipping his head.
I take a few steps toward the doorway and turn back to him. “Thanks for telling me. About my dad, that is. I appreciate it.”
“Of course.”
I shoot him a final smile and walk out. Making my way past the flurry of activity in the rest of the house, my thoughts are drawn back to my dad. I’ve been worried about him for a while and now James is, too. It makes me uneasy.
When I get to my bedroom, I find Wade organizing the contents of our stash across the foot of my bed.
He looks up at me as I walk in. “Everything okay?”
I screw up my face with my conflicting thoughts. “Yes? No? Ugh, I don’t know.” I sit on the edge of the bed. “James said he’s concerned about my dad and it’s got me even more worried about him now.”
“What did James say?” Wade asks, stepping around the bed and taking a seat beside me.
“Well, besides the obvious concern about the house—he said my dad’s been off. Agitated. Well, we knew that already. I’m worried… Do you think he’s upset that we’re together? I mean, your dad is. Maybe mine is too,” I say, voicing a concern I hadn’t realized was there until it slipped from my mouth.
Wade’s forehead crumples and he shakes his head. “I doubt that’s it. As far as I’m aware, the issue is one-sided.”
“Hmmm…”
“What did James say about the house?” Wade asks, placing a hand on my knee.
I take a deep breath and exhale. “He said he’s never seen this level of destruction before. The house is a magnet for ghosts, for obvious reasons, but it should be warded. He’s concerned the wards are failing.”
“All the more reason to get these castings done,” Wade says, nodding to himself and standing back up. “I have everything laid out to do the banishing first. Then, we’ll need to set runes at strategic locations of the house. I have a compass in there that should help us map those out. Unless of course, you want to get your dad involved. He might be able to help us cut down the time it’ll take to locate them.”
I consider his words, weighing them heavily. On one hand, it makes sense, but after the reaction he had to Wade the last time, the last thing I want to do is upset him further.
“No, I think we can handle this ourselves. Let’s give him some time to get centered. This has been a weird couple of days,” I say, reaching for the sage. “If we run into him, we can reassess based on how he reacts. Otherwise, let’s give him some space.”
“If that’s what you want,” Wade says, nodding. He gathers up the conch shell, mortar and pestle, and the herbs we retrieved. Setting them on my desk, he places the sage, lemongrass, and lavender in the mortar and begins to mash it together. Under his breath, he mutters words I can’t quite make out.
From the bed, I grab the coarse-grain salt and the small, ornate metal bowl. I pour some of the salt into my hand, blessing it with white light before dropping it into the bowl. The granules hit the metal, ringing out in a magical sound that makes the hair on my arms rise. Next, I open the small bottle of purified water we picked up and pour it into the bowl. With a swish of the bowl, the water dissolves the salt before my eyes. I grab the bowl of water and the white pillar candle still waiting for its purpose, and walk over to Wade.
“Don’t forget to word things carefully. You don’t want to kick Abigail out by accident,” Wade warns, stepping aside.
I nod, placing the candle on the desk beside the mixture. I light it quickly, then recite the incantation, still fresh in my memory from one of my course books.
“As this candle burns, its flame purifies our home. It acts as our cage, binding and banishing unwelcome spirits and energies from Blackwood Manor. When the flame is spent, and the smudging is done, they will be cast from this space. Now and forever.”
As I finish, the flame reacts, rising higher into the air.
Wade nods, bending down and releasing the contents from the mortar into the abalone shell. Lighting the smudge, it crackles as flames consume the leaves. He blows it out and instantly, it fills the room with the heavy aroma of sage, lavender, and sweetgrass. “It’s begun. Okay, you take the smudge and I’ll take the salt. We need to smudge every room in this place, so this could take a while.”
I pick up the conch shell and a large feather, guiding the smoke to the four corners of the room. “By the four elements, I banish any unwelcome spirits or energies from this space.” I walk the room counter-clockwise, the motion of banishment, to help dislodge the unwelcome
