The Book of Lost Souls Read online

  Vines crept up old headstones, sections of them barely visible over tall weeds. The cemetery had both a serene and an eerie feel to it. Death coexisting with nature. Both had been forgotten here. Both free to do as they wished. Ivy found it sad that barely anyone came to visit, or that no one was left alive to remember those buried among the old oaks and maples.

  They unloaded the cart’s trailer, put on thick work gloves Gareth had found back at the maintenance shed, and after grabbing rakes or sheers they set to their tasks. Who were the adults kidding? Ivy thought that the cleanup job looked more like a lifetime occupation than a morning’s work.

  The girls stuck close enough to talk while they labored away. Ivy noticed that one grave in particular had been kept meticulously maintained. Weird. Not one weed could be found growing on it, and not one vine had sought out the headstone. Apparently, this grave still got an occasional visitor.

  “It’s strange,” Raven said. “Some of these are old enough to have been my grandparents.”

  “Do you miss being a Regular?” Ivy asked. Raven and Gareth were the only Kindred friends of hers who had started out as Regulars.

  Raven paused for a moment. “Sometimes,” she finally said. “It gets better over time. Sooner or later, everyone you know dies, unless you turn them.”

  “Dad turned us,” Gareth said, his voice sounding both full of admiration and deep sorrow.

  “Why did he do that?” Ivy asked, snipping a vine. “I thought most vampires didn’t want to live forever, much less do that to someone they love.”

  “When he was turned, he couldn’t stand the thought of living without us,” Raven said. “We started to grow older and he knew that one day, we’d die. When he turned us, it didn’t hurt. Much. It sounds awful, I know, but he really does love us.”

  Ivy didn’t know what to say. Sorry seemed such a weak word. Mr. Gray loved his family and he doted on them every chance he got. How much of that was sorrow for what he’d done and how much was the way he felt, Ivy didn’t know. At least their father loved them enough that he never wanted to be without them. She couldn’t say the same.

  “It’s okay,” Gareth said, apparently noticing the gloomy faces of his friends. “Really. We’ll never die and leave family behind, will we?”

  Ivy caught the question in Shayde’s worried glance. Are you all right? her eyes seemed to ask. Ivy wanted to tell her she was fine. She’d done okay without a father in her life. In fact, maybe because it had only been her and her mother, she’d grown up to be stronger. At least she liked to think others saw her that way. But Bane and Shayde knew it was her weakness, too. They were there when he left.

  The Connors had become Ivy’s second family—the brother and sister she never had. It had been an easy thing to do since she’d known Shayde and Bane all her life. Their mothers had been neighbors and had given birth within weeks of each other. Ivy and Shayde figured their mothers had eaten far too many pickles and ice cream when they were pregnant, since Ivy, Bane, and Shayde had all been named after plant life. Shayde had been named after Nightshade. Bane had been named after Wolfsbane.

  Ivy moved to another gravesite. The soil here had been pawed at. “I think I found where Uncle Lucas was digging last night.”

  Bane and Shayde stopped weeding and walked over to examine the ground. “Uncle Lucas might have started to dig here, but this wasn’t the grave he took the bone from.”

  “There!” Gareth said. “I think he got it from there.” He pointed to a pile of dirt next to a crumbling tombstone. The small marker was overshadowed by a dilapidated outbuilding overgrown with vines.

  The five of them strode over to get a better look.

  “Did anyone ever come out here to see which grave the bone came from?” Ivy asked.

  Raven shrugged. “I don’t think so. At least not yet.”

  “Maybe they figured we’d find out soon enough,” Bane said. “But this is definitely where Uncle Lucas found the bone.”

  The wooden casket in the grave had deteriorated. The top had caved in some time ago, allowing dirt inside. The skeleton inside was void of hair and only scraps of tattered grey clothing clung to the remains. He or she was also missing a leg bone.

  “Well, on the bright side, it has been almost a month since Uncle Lucas dug up the last one,” Bane said.

  “He’s just getting older,” Ivy said, kneeling next to the grave. “We should go back and get the bone. Re-bury it with...” The headstone was so timeworn that she could barely read the name. “Henry Laughton, born eighteen-thirteen, died eighteen-sixty-six.”

  Ivy snipped a vine that had wrapped around the base of the headstone. “Well, Mr. Laughton, we’ll have you back together and resting peacefully for eternity in no time.” She took some lawn bags from the trailer and positioned them across the bones and placed a few small rocks on the corners to hold it down.

  “Why’d you do that?” Gareth asked.

  Ivy shrugged. “I can’t just leave him there like that.”

  Gareth guffawed. “It’s not like he’s cold or anything.”

  Ivy stared at the bags covering the remains of Henry Laughton. “It’s not that. I—”

  “Ivy,” Raven interrupted. “Hey, it’s Spike!”

  A flash of movement along the stone wall near the back of the cemetery caught their attention. It could only have been Spike. He still wore the velveteen cape and dark tights, and he was darting around the field that separated the old section of the cemetery from the Wallace farm.

  Ivy smiled. With any luck, they’d be off cemetery duty in no time.

  CHAPTER 6

  They all took off in a run toward Spike, who kept darting about the field, tongue flicking into the air.

  “What is he doing?” Shayde asked.

  “I think he’s catching bees,” Gareth replied. “Mr. Wallace has a bunch of bee hives. Sells the honey at the produce stand on weekends.”

  “Won’t he get stung?” Ivy asked, a little out of breath. Witches didn’t have the speed or endurance of werewolves or vampires, and she’d started to lag behind.

  “Hard to say since he’s only part lizard,” Gareth answered.

  Spike took notice of the five of them running toward him. He stopped snatching bees from the air and fled.

  “Come on, Ivy!” Shayde shouted. “Hit him with a spell!”

  Ivy stopped to catch her breath. Bane and Shayde tried to herd Spike toward Gareth and Raven, but he easily outmaneuvered them, and Ivy couldn’t get a focus on Spike long enough to do any good. She might hit one of her friends instead.

  Just when she thought she might have a clear shot, Spike sidestepped Bane, darted left and disappeared into a ditch.

  “Damn!” Bane said. “If I’d just been in wolf form, I would’ve snagged him!”

  “Great!” Gareth said. “We lost him again. I’ll never get Spike back to normal at this rate! And when I do, he won’t like eating his mealworms. He’ll be spoiled eating insects he’s caught in the wild.”

  They stood at the base of the ditch where Spike had vanished into a rusty drainage pipe leading to a small retaining pond.

  Bane knelt down to look inside. “I don’t know. He can’t go anywhere. He’s trapped in there. All Ivy has to do is go in after him.”

  Ivy wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Are you insane? I’m not going in there!”

  “She doesn’t have to,” Raven said. “If he can’t go anywhere, why can’t Ivy just aim a spell inside the pipe?”

  Shayde nodded. “Good idea. Think you can do it, Ivy?”

  Ivy considered the plan. “I don’t know. I’ve never aimed a spell at something I can’t see before.”

  “Oh, come on, Ivy! Get him back,” Gareth pleaded. “Who knows when we’ll come across him again?”

  Ivy sighed. Spike was Gareth’s pet. At least he used to be. And he’d trusted her. What if someone had lost Devlin? Gareth had done her a favor by letting her use Spike in the first place, which was more than she’d have done. She�
��d never have let anyone do anything to Devlin. She had to get Spike back.

  “Fine,” she said, drawing closer to the pipe. Her friends hunkered down next to her, all eager to see what spell she’d choose to bring Spike out.

  Ivy focused into the darkness and cast a simple Retrieval spell. There was a rustling sound, followed by the echoes of heavy thuds and thumps. Ivy distinctly heard feet shuffling against the pipe.

  Gareth rubbed his hand together in anticipation. “Here he comes.”

  The five of them flew backwards into the soggy ditch, avoiding the family of rats that flew out of the end of the pipe. The rats sailed overhead, screeching and wriggling furiously. One by one, they fell to the ground, each with a little sickening thud, before scurrying off in different directions, still shrieking with indignation.

  Bane swore under his breath. Ivy disentangled herself from Raven.

  “Uck!” Gareth said, wiping slimy green algae from his hands onto his pants.

  “Well, that didn’t work,” Ivy said. “Sorry, guys. Really, I’m so sorry.” Ivy had never thought of herself as lucky or unlucky, at least not until the past twenty-four hours. Now, nothing she did worked out right.

  Bane shook excess water from his shoes. “It’s okay. We told you to do it. It’s sorta our fault. It seemed like a good idea.”

  “At the time,” Shayde finished.

  Gareth tentatively peeked into the pipe. “Where’d he go? Should we try it again?”

  “No way.” Ivy took a step back. “There’s no telling what else is in there.”

  “Maybe alligators,” Gareth said. “Like the ones they say are in the sewers in New York.”

  Raven shot her brother an exasperated glance. “You and your reptile fetish.”

  “Kidding! Just kidding,” Gareth said. “Although it would be cool if there were giant alligators in the sewers.”

  “It would not be cool. And, I agree with Ivy,” Shayde said. “Let’s go back. We’re all wet and soggy. We can finish up tomorrow.”

  They headed back to the graveyard to collect their things and return to the funeral home. As they loaded the last of the tools and bags, Ivy caught a glimpse of someone in a black coat disappearing behind a tree. She waited to see who it was, but no one ever came out from the other side. Which was impossible because the tree wasn’t wide enough to hide behind.

  She stared for a moment longer, thinking she’d imagined seeing anyone at all. Then, something red fluttered on the ground by the tree. Had that been there even a few minutes ago? She didn’t think so. They’d passed that tree on the way to Mr. Wallace’s farm. But then, they had been in a hurry to get Spike, so maybe she just didn’t see it.

  Frowning, she left the others and went to investigate. She glanced back toward the noisy gate, which was still closed. They’d have heard if someone opened it. Still, she’d seen someone. It had been a man—well, probably a man. The figure was too tall and broad for a woman. But, she’d only caught a glimpse, just a second’s worth of coat and pant leg before the figure vanished.

  Vanished. It was like the guy just disappeared into thin air.

  Ivy turned her attention to the base of the tree. Two books sat at the base, neatly stacked on top of a dirt encrusted burlap sack. Tucked under the books, a red ribbon fluttered in the breeze, the ends crinkled as though they had once been tied.

  The books and the empty sack had not been there before. She was almost positive. She knelt down next to retrieve the books, noticing the dust jacket on the top book was torn. The first cover read: 1001 Quick Recipes. The title of the second book read: A Botany of Spells—Magic for the Garden.

  What a weird place to be reading. And what was with the ribbon and the burlap sack? Someone had to have placed these here within the past several minutes. Had someone set the books here while they’d been chasing Spike? She scanned the cemetery. Whoever she’d seen wasn’t here now.

  But people didn’t just vanish. There wasn’t any such spell.

  “Ivy,” Shayde called out. “Are you coming?”

  “Yeah, sure. In a minute,” Ivy told them.

  “What are you doing?” Raven yelled from the golf cart. “Come on!”

  She inspected the second book and the ribbon underneath it. Then, she set the first book back on top, held the ends of the ribbon together, and twisted them in a makeshift loop where the creases were. There was a four inch or so gap between the top of the books and where Ivy had loosely tied the ends. A book was missing. Frowning once more, she slid the ribbon off the books and looked around, puzzled. Other than the burlap bag the books had probably come from, she didn’t see anything else of interest. Ivy opened the dirt-encrusted bag and found another torn piece of cover jacket. She checked out both of the other two jackets. Although dirty and tattered, they weren’t missing a corner.

  Why would anyone leave cooking and gardening books in a cemetery? Suspecting that the ill-fitting jacket on the first book wasn’t what the cover suggested, Ivy slipped it off. Sure enough, the book inside was titled, The Rise of the Dark Curse. Ivy carefully opened the book.

  Black tendrils of smoke billowed from the yellowed pages. Indiscernible whispers echoed from within the book. A long wisp of smoke touched her arm and an odd and unpleasant tingling sensation traveled over her arm and began to bury itself into her skin. Ivy gasped and dropped the book.

  “What is it?” Bane asked. “Ivy, are you okay?”

  She hadn’t noticed the others had left the golf cart and gathered around her.

  “Y-yes.” She stood and rubbed her arm as though trying to remove a spider web. “I think so.”

  Raven went to open the book. “Don’t touch it!” Ivy shouted, grabbing Raven and pulling her back. “There’s something not right about it.”

  “It really is a strange place to be reading books,” Shayde said.

  “Especially a cookbook,” Gareth added.

  Shayde’s face took on the worried appearance Ivy knew so well. “I’m afraid to ask what someone would be doing with such a book.” She exchanged nervous glances with the rest of the group.

  “Unless Gareth is right and we’ve got a cannibal zombie, maybe they’re practicing black magic?” Bane asked.

  Ivy nodded. “Yeah, this is pretty heavy black magic stuff. So, yeah, I think someone could be practicing up here. And there’s something else. Something much worse.”

  “What?” Shayde asked, her brow deeply furrowed.

  Ivy gave the ribbon another pensive glance, then turned to face her friends. “There’s a third book, and it’s missing.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “There’s a third book?” Shayde asked, accepting a cup of hot chocolate from Raven. “Is it another one on black magic?”

  “I think so,” Ivy sighed.

  Bane scratched his head. “How do you know there’s a missing book and that it’s worse than that one?” He nodded toward the books Ivy had brought back from the cemetery.

  Each of them stared at the books sitting on the coffee table as though they were a pile of rattlesnakes. Ivy supposed that in a way, one of them was about as dangerous. Bane had asked that she put them in the trailer instead of carrying them on her lap during their return trip from the cemetery, a request she had been happy to oblige.

  “I think these were deliberately left behind,” Ivy said. “I know it sounds weird, but someone buried the books in Mr. Laughton’s grave.”

  Gareth frowned. “Someone hid them in a grave? From who?”

  “Good question,” Bane said. “They even went to the trouble of putting a different book jacket on one of them in the hopes of disguising it in case someone found them.”

  “That’s lame,” Raven said.

  “Not if they left them there in a hurry,” Shayde said, taking a seat. The color in her face drained. “Ivy, you don’t think...that book couldn’t possibly…”

  Ivy ran a hand over the book on magical gardening. Touching the other one gave her the creeps. “I don’t know. He left without a
word.”

  “Your dad?” Raven said, clearly surprised. “You think your dad buried them?”

  Bane rested a hand on Raven’s shoulder. “He was the last person to see Helen Skinner alive before her house burned down. Well, every part of it except the library.”

  “Helen Skinner?” Gareth asked.

  “A black magic practitioner who lived here years ago,” Shayde replied.

  Bane nodded. “It wasn’t exactly a secret that Skinner had written a couple of the darkest books ever known to our world. She made no bones about it that she had them in her house, protected by spells. After the fire, the Council searched, but no one has ever found them. Ivy’s dad disappeared right when the books did. The book Ivy found today is probably one of Skinner’s lost books.”

  Ivy stared at the books, suddenly feeling all the pain, all the embarrassment surrounding her father’s disappearance come rushing back. The Council had questioned Ivy and her mother about her father’s behavior, his whereabouts, and possible involvement surrounding Skinner’s death.

  Eventually, the questions stopped. For a while afterward, everyone watched Ivy and her mom more closely.

  “Someone buried the books, then dug them up,” Ivy said. “They went to a lot of trouble to hide them, which makes me think the person who buried them wasn’t the one who dug them up. Question is, who left them behind the tree for us to find?”

  “You’re over thinking this,” Bane said. “We probably just didn’t see them when we went after Spike.”

  “Give the books to your mom,” Shayde said softly. “See what she says.”

  Ivy considered it, and maybe she would ask her mother later. “I thought about that. It’s just that once I give Mom the books, she’ll have to give them to the Council. And then the Council will start to wonder if I’ve used any of the spells in it since I’ve already broken some rules in changing Spike. Everyone will start talking, saying that I’m turning into a dark witch and that I’m just like him.”