The Demon Notebook (12 page)

“Then where—?”

Ms. Lemon stopped suddenly and closed her eyes.

“Vera,” she said. “Vera Quinlan's helping you.”

Grace nodded.

“How was Vera involved in your summoning of a demon?” the teacher asked.

“She wasn't,” said Grace. “We asked her for help because we didn't know what to do to stop the spells.”

“What spells?”

Grace proceeded to explain how she and her friends had attempted to dabble in witchcraft by casting a list of spells. How they had tried out a real Ouija board in school when the Career Night was happening, and how the demon they had accidentally summoned had possessed their friend and was executing each of their failed spells.

“Well,” said Ms. Lemon after a moment. “It could be worse, I suppose. So you all become fluent in French for a while—and then what? You get your favorite lunches at school, or something?”

“Not exactly.” Grace looked to the other two, but neither seemed willing to speak. “Our first spell was…we did it right after Jenny got punched by this bully and…you see, Una was really upset and—”

“Spit it out.”

“We did a spell to make Tracy Murphy get hit by a bus.”

Grace's eyes shot to the floor. She waited for the horribly long silence to end.

“And this is the last of only two spells remaining?” said the teacher.

Grace looked up warily and nodded.

“Right,” said Ms. Lemon, taking out a notebook and pen, “then we don't have much time.”

“You're not mad?” said Grace.

“Mad?”

“About the spell we did on Tracy Murphy.”

“Girls,” the teacher said gently, “I was in middle school too, you know. I know how hard it can be. It was an extremely silly, childish thing to do, but I think you're being punished enough for it now.”

The girls looked at each other in faint hope.

“Now,” said Ms. Lemon, getting down to business, “you've tried the state-altering incantation, which obviously hasn't worked. So I presume you've already tried an exorcism enchantment, which also didn't work.”

“Yeah,” replied Jenny. “That was a total disaster. Una went crazy and totally wrecked the A block trying to chase us down.”

Adie and Grace shot her an accusing look.

“So that was you all as well?” said the woman. “Wonderful. It sounds like we'll have to be wary of Una. If that demon has resisted being pulled out
and
being sucked back down the well, then it's a strong one. We don't want to anger it any more than necessary.”

“So you can help us?” Adie asked.

“I can try.”

“Great!” exclaimed Jenny. “Then we don't need Old Cat Lady anymore.”

“Not exactly,” said Ms. Lemon. “I'm going with you to Vera's house after school. You need all the help you can get.”

“So how do you know Mrs. Quinlan?” Rachel was still trying to catch up on what she'd missed. In the space of one afternoon, the others had managed to recruit another adult who not only knew all about the demon well, but was going to help them get Una back.

“Oh, it was a very long time ago,” replied Ms. Lemon, lifting her feet as she walked, trying to avoid the early evening dew already settling on the football field. “We both had an interest in the occult, just like you girls, and it kind of brought us together.”

“You were good friends?” said Grace.

“The best. Very close.”

“But you don't see each other now?”

“We haven't spoken in years,” said Ms. Lemon. “We…we had a falling-out.”

“A fight?” said Jenny. “Over what?”

Ms. Lemon sighed.

“We just had a difference of opinion, that's all.”

Jenny opened her mouth to push the matter further, but Grace silenced her with a look.

A chorus of cat meows erupted as they walked up the driveway of the house in Wilton Place, so loud that it must have alerted Mrs. Quinlan. She was already pulling the door open as the girls stepped onto the porch.

“What have I done to be forever plagued by your faces?!” she snapped as a welcome. “Why didn't it work? What did you do wrong?”

“We didn't do anything wrong, Mrs. Quinlan,” Grace replied. “It just didn't work.”

“Lies.”

“It's true,” said Ms. Lemon, stepping last into the porch light. “It seems they carried out the incantation as instructed. The demon was too powerful.”

Mrs. Quinlan stepped back as if she'd been struck. Her eyes went wide with surprise, then narrowed to slits.

“Beth,” she said quietly. “Long time, no see.”

“How've you been, Vera?”

“Can't complain.”

“You're…you're looking well.”

“Right back at ya.”

“May I come in?”

Mrs. Quinlan wriggled her jaw from side to side, as if chewing on a sweet.

“S'pose,” she muttered. She turned and stamped back to the kitchen.

“The girls have been filling me in on the situation,” said Ms. Lemon as she and the girls followed closely behind. “We're in quite a lot of trouble here.”

“
They're
in quite a lot of trouble,” Mrs. Quinlan corrected her. “
I
didn't summon any demon.”

“No,” said Ms. Lemon, “but we can't expect the children to fix this alone. I know you agree with me, or you wouldn't have done so much to help them already.”

“Didn't do much,” Mrs. Quinlan waved a hand dismissively, “and it doesn't matter anyway, because whatever I tell them to do hasn't been working.”

Ms. Lemon sat down at the table and smiled at her old friend. Grace watched Mrs. Quinlan's eyes boring into the French teacher. She looked like a boxer eyeing up her opponent before a fight.

“I feel so old now,” said Ms. Lemon, still smiling, “sitting with you after all these years. We were so young back then, so innocent.”

Mrs. Quinlan sat in silence, picking at a knot in the wood of the table with her fingernail.

“They remind me of us,” Ms. Lemon went on. “When they told me their story, our school days just came flooding back to me.”

“You were in school together?” asked Rachel.

“In Saint John's.” Ms. Lemon nodded.

“You two are the same
age
?” Jenny blurted out.

Mrs. Quinlan shot her a fiery look.

“Yes, we're the same
age
.”

“We had our own little coven,” said Ms. Lemon, a smile still playing on her lips as she remembered, “like you girls, but there were only three of us. Us two and Meredith. We were thick as thieves, determined to become great witches. But then, of course, we discovered the demon well.”

“And we found out the hard way that the occult is not all fun and games,” said Mrs. Quinlan grimly.

“Why'd you stop talking to each other?” Jenny asked.

“Jenny!” Grace chided her.

“What? They're talking about it anyway. I want to know.”

Ms. Lemon looked at Mrs. Quinlan, waiting for her to answer. But no answer came.

“By the time we were old enough to leave school,” Ms. Lemon said, “we had vowed to do all we could to keep the town safe from the demon well. Only, we had different ideas about what that meant.”

“
I
believed,” Mrs. Quinlan cut in, “that in order for people to be safe, they should know as much as possible about it. I felt it was necessary to inform the town of the
presence
of the demon well, and that way they would know to stay away from it.
She
thought we should keep it a secret.”

“It was the only way,” said the teacher.

“
How
can people be safe from a danger they don't know is
there
?” said Mrs. Quinlan.

“I came back to the school,” replied Ms. Lemon, “to watch over the well.”

“Lot of good that did.”

“Yes,” sighed Ms. Lemon, “I wasn't vigilant enough, and these girls are paying the price. But your way didn't work either, Vera.”

“Did you tell people about the well?” asked Grace.

“I told them about it.” Mrs. Quinlan nodded. “Decades ago. Everyone said I was crazy. The whole town just laughed at me.”

“I was so sorry about that,” Ms. Lemon said sincerely. “I wanted to talk to you so many times over the years. After your husband left town, I was so close to coming to this house. But I never did.”

“Did your husband leave because he thought you were nuts too?” asked Jenny.

“No,” Mrs. Quinlan snapped. “For your information, Miss Nosey Parker, he hated
cats
. He said to me one day, ‘Get rid of the cats or I'm moving to South America.' ‘Don't forget your toothbrush,' I said.”

“What about the third one in your coven?” said Grace. “Where is she?”

“Meredith? She…” Ms. Lemon paused as the two women exchanged meaningful glances. “She left. We never heard from her again.”

“Moved to Romania or someplace,” Mrs. Quinlan grunted. “Good riddance.”

“So she won't be helping us too, then?” Jenny asked.

“No. You're stuck with just the two of us. More than you deserve, if you ask me,” the Old Cat Lady snarled.

“So what spell or incantation thingy are we going to try next?” asked Grace.

Ms. Lemon took a deep breath and looked at each of the girls.

“The only option left to us is one you would hope never to have to perform. It's extremely dangerous and will require each of you to be very brave.”

“More demons?” Adie frowned.

“No, you're going to focus on just Una for this one. But first you must collect the necessary…buffers.”

“Buffers?” said Grace.

“Something to cushion you from the force that has possessed your friend,” said the teacher. “This creature has resisted some very powerful magic, and the only tactic we have left is to curse the demon permanently. Bind it so it is hurled back down the well and can never again return.”

“Will this one definitely work?” asked Jenny.

“If it is performed correctly, almost certainly.”

“Great!”

“Don't celebrate too soon,” said Ms. Lemon. “You have to gather the required…
materials
, first.”

“Which are?” asked Grace. The women exchanged glances.

“Trapped souls,” Mrs. Quinlan replied. “Listen. When spirits fail to reach the afterlife, but cannot return to their living bodies, they become trapped in a plane that is somewhere between our world and the next. We can sometimes hear them, sometimes see them, but the connection is weak. They cannot see or hear enough of our world to interact properly with it. For them, it drifts in and out like a badly tuned radio. It's an uncomfortable existence, and often prevents them from communicating with each other in any meaningful way. As a result, they experience discomfort and extreme loneliness, which drives them to madness.”

“That's awful!” exclaimed Adie. “The poor things.”

“Yes, little girl, it is tragic,” the woman said flatly, “but there is nothing we living beings can do for them. They, on the other hand, can do us tremendous damage.”

“How?”

“You've heard of poltergeists, haunted houses, and other paranormal events?”

“Yes. You mean those things are real?”

“Well, I'm sure some of them,” Mrs. Quinlan said, waving her hand, “are just the ramblings of brain-dead idiots, or fools trying to make a few bucks. But these things actually exist. Lost spirits
can
influence objects and people on our plane to a certain extent. Always remember that they are desperate to connect, to
interact
with others in any way possible. If they make you scream with fear, that's an interaction. If they make you bleed by flinging some object at your head, that's an interaction.”

“And these are the things,” Grace said worriedly, “that we have to
collect.
”

“Yep.”

“But
how
?”

Ms. Lemon took over in a calm voice, trying to reassure the girls as she spoke.

“Luckily,” she said, “these spirits gather together in groups—their desire for company extends to each other, you see—so you can collect the half dozen or so that you need at one time.”

“So,” asked Jenny, frowning, “we just grab them and shove them in a jar or something?”

“Unfortunately,” her teacher replied, “it's a little more complicated than that. The collection can only take place during a full moon, when the link between the two planes is strongest. One—
and
only
one—
of you will take a chi orb to the gathering and perform the ritual. If all goes to plan, the spirits will be trapped in the orb until you need them.”

“Where do we get a
cheee
orb?” said Jenny.

Mrs. Quinlan dug into a heavy cloth bag hanging on a hook by the stove, pulled out what looked like a navy-blue paperweight, and tossed it onto the table. It landed with a loud bang and, oddly, didn't break, bounce, or roll.

“Careful!” Adie squealed, jumping back in fright.

“Relax, Abbey,” said Mrs. Quinlan. “It's unbreakable. By us, anyway.”

Grace took a deep breath. “Where do we take it?”

“There is a
gathering
nearby,” Mrs. Quinlan replied, riffling through a drawer before pulling out a dirty, well-used map and spreading it across the kitchen table. “Here.” She pointed.

She looked up after a long silence.

“You're all a little pale,” she said.

“No,” Adie shivered, stepping back from the table and slowly sitting on a moth-eaten armchair against the wall. “No way.”

“The Stone House,” Rachel whispered.

“You know this place?” asked Ms. Lemon.

“It's in the field next to Rachel's house,” breathed Grace. “We sometimes dare each other to go out to it in the dark. But none of us have ever managed it.”

“Una got close that time.” Jenny frowned. “She said she heard voices in there.”

“It's very probable that she did,” Mrs. Quinlan said. “There should be enough spirits in there to make a cacophony under the right moon.”

“And one of us has to go in there
alone
?” Adie's olive skin went grayer.

“Yep,” the woman sniffed, folding the map and pushing it back into the overflowing drawer. “
Your
mess.
You
fix it.”

“What she means, girls,” Ms. Lemon cut in diplomatically, “is that because you summoned the demon, you have to be the ones to eject it. We're going to help you as much as we possibly can but, this particular part, you have to do yourselves.”

“Like I said,” grunted Mrs. Quinlan. “Your mess. You fix it.”

***

Wednesday night's full moon loomed over them like a horrible nightmare. The girls were in their first lunchtime detention following the purple-stinking-gunk fiasco, and they still had not discussed who would be the one to collect the lost souls. No one had even mentioned the Stone House since they left Mrs. Quinlan's house the previous evening, and time was running out. None of them wanted to volunteer.

“We draw straws,” Grace said. “It's the only fair way.”

“I can't do it,” Adie replied. “I know I'll get the short straw, and I just
can't do it
. I can't go out there alone. I think I'd
die
.”

“None of us want to do it,” Rachel said softly, “but we have no choice. I agree with Grace. We leave it up to chance.”

Jenny nodded solemnly in agreement.

“Shall we do it now?” said Grace. “Get it over and done with?”